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  • Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cosmos and more Week 9 2024

Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cosmos and more Week 9 2024

Keeping you updated on crypto, web3 and blockchain

TLDR: Bitcoin Surpasses the $60K Mark After Two Years, Bitcoin EFT’s BTC AUM 4%, Blast’s Rocky Launch, Robinhood and Arbitrum Team Up, Dencun upgrade Live Date Announced, Stride Announces stDYM, Gemini Reaches Settlement with NYDFS & SBF Pleads for Shorter Sentence - Advises Prison Guards to Invest in Solana.

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Bitcoin Highlights of the Week

On February 28th, Bitcoin surged over 6%, breaching the $60,000 mark for the first time in over two years. The last time Bitcoin traded above this threshold was on November 12, 2021, before beginning a reversal that saw it plummet over 67% to a low of $19,297 in April 2022.

This bullish momentum coincided with the spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) reaching a record high of $2.4 billion in daily trading volume on February 26th, with the new nine spot Bitcoin ETFs collectively surpassing $2 billion in trading volume for multiple days during the week.

Bitcoin ETFs currently possess close to 4% of the total BTC supply. Collectively, the spot Bitcoin ETFs holds 776,464 BTC valued at $47.7B. The dawn of a new paradigm in the Bitcoin ecosystem.

CoinGlass reported that the combined open interest for Bitcoin futures exceeded $26B on Friday. This surpasses the peak of $24B seen in the final quarter of 2021.

BlackRock introduces Brazil's BTC ETF, expanding its iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF launch beyond its borders. Industry insiders claim this is only the first of many BTC ETFs by BlackRock to be set up internationally. BlackRock’s BTC ETF in Brazil trades under ticker IBIT39.

Ethereum Highlights of the Week

The Ethereum Foundation confirmed the successful completion of all testing phases for the long-awaited Dencun network upgrade. The upgrade is scheduled to officially launch on the Ethereum mainnet at epoch 269568 on March 13th. The upgrade will introduce significant scaling enhancements aimed at improving transaction efficiency and lowering fees for users.

Blast's launch commenced with a surge, attracting 502k transactions from 18.8k wallets within an hour of its official release. This heightened activity led to bridge fees surpassing $500 on average for a brief period. Despite the initial excitement, a significant number of users withdrew nearly $2B. Resulting in a substantial drop in TVL from $2.3B to approximately $500M across the network and remaining deposits.

The Robinhood Wallet has partnered with Arbitrum. The partnership aims to facilitate token exchanges on Ethereum's largest Layer 2 network Arbitrum. Arbitrum boasts over $14B locked in its smart contracts, making them the largest Layer 2 network on Ethereum.

The Uniswap Foundation's announcement last week regarding the activation of the fee switch propelled UNI's price by more than 50% within a day. This proposal aims to encourage active and thoughtful participation in governance by allowing UNI holders who have delegated or staked their tokens to share in the rewards generated by the DEX's swap fees.

EtherFi, a liquid staking protocol, has concluded a $27M investment round spearheaded by Bullish and CoinFund. This funding, comprising a combination of a Simple Agreement for Future Equity (SAFE) and a Series A round, is intended to bolster EtherFi's standing within the cryptocurrency realm. Boasting close to $1.7 billion in total value locked, EtherFi remains the foremost platform for Ethereum liquid restaking, underpinned by the restaking protocol EigenLayer.

Cosmos Highlights of the Week

Iqlusion's Liquid Staking Module (LSM) is set to launch on Quicksilver. It enables delegators to tokenize their staked positions without needing to unbond. With LSM, users can convert their staked Atom to qATOM directly, without the need for unbonding.

Upon its launch in March, stDYM will mark the debut of the initial liquid staked token for Dymension's DYM. Holding stDYM offers the opportunity to earn staking rewards and potentially receive airdrops, all while maintaining liquidity.

Coinbase announced the addition of $AKT to its new asset listing roadmap this week.

Persistence One introduces dYdX Liquid Staking on Cosmos. This introduction heralds a new era for liquid staking solutions within the Cosmos ecosystem. This introduction builds on the successful launches of stkATOM and stkOSMO.

Skip API becomes the official routing partner of Stride. The partnership aims to ensure seamless availability of stAssets across the modular interchain in just one transaction.

Other Highlights of the Week

Gemini has settled with the New York State Department of Financial Services to reimburse at least $1.1B to Gemini Earn program customers affected by the Genesis bankruptcy. Additionally, Gemini will pay a $37M penalty for compliance failures. Pending approval by the bankruptcy court, Gemini anticipates that Earn users will receive full restitution of their cryptocurrency assets along with any appreciation.

BitForex, a Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange, abruptly stopped withdrawals after $56M was withdrawn from its wallets on Feb. 23. The exchange's X account hasn't been updated since May 2023. Users have reported various issues on BitForex's official Telegram channel, including account access problems and missing asset information on the dashboard.

Legal counsel for former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried is seeking a sentence of less than seven years for fraud and money laundering convictions. The Pre-sentence Investigation Report suggests a 100-year sentence. The sentencing will be announced on March 28. While in custody, SBF allegedly advises prison guards to invest in SOL.

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