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Last month I shared a list of relevant news with you, with the intention of creating different kinds of content that can add value.
The response was pretty good, so I’m planning to continue this monthly summary of curated news to keep you informed.
In this noisy space, and particularly during times when the market isn’t as hyped up, it is important to be well informed and pay attention to actual development and facts, as these are great indicators of trends and direction we are heading at.
So regardless of numbers, remember there is a lot happening in the background. As we close this month (crazy how time passed by this year!), here is a curated list of some of the most relevant crypto news during April.
Ready?
Here we go…
All about Crypto Adoption…
Investment giant Fidelity plans to allow investors to put Bitcoin in their 401K accounts. This is not just about the first major retirement plan provider to do so. To put into perspective the significance of this endorsement by Fidelity, its worth noting it currently has over 40M individual investors, $11.8 trillion assets under administration, and a daily average trade of $2.8 M. Learn more here.
The Bitcoin 2022 Conference was held at the Miami Beach Convention Center, with over 35,000 attendees. It hosted some of the most prominent people in the crypto industry, such as Jack Mallers (CEO of Strike); Peter Thiel, (co-founder of PayPal); Michael Saylor (CEO of MicroStrategy), and more. Learn more here.
Robinhood listed four new cryptocurrencies: Shiba Inu, Matic, Solana, and Compound. Learn more here.
The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) has partnered up with Crypto.com to give out Bitcoin bonuses to the top three UFC Fighters of each pay-per-view event, voted on by fans. Learn more here.
Grayscale renews its push with the SEC to get the approval for Bitcoin Spot ETF in the US. This will allow people to actually buy and hold BTC, instead of speculating on future prices, which is the main difference against the existing BTC Futures ETFs. Learn more here.
The NBA announced the upcoming “Dynamic” Ethereum NFTs for Playoffs. The project will include the minting of 18,000 assets called The Association. Learn more here.
A new report by DappRadar and the Blockchain Game Alliance (BGA) shows that investors have poured $2.5 billion into crypto games in the first quarter of 2022, suggesting this year we will continue to see massive growth in this space. Learn more here.
Socios.com, the sports and fan engagement app, continues to grow its partnerships across the industry: this month it signed a historic partnership with 13 NFL franchises in the US, and also launched Fan Token Cup for the Premier League fans. Learn more here, as well as here.
Bitcoin is no longer the only crypto asset in public companies’ treasuries. Ethereum has become a top asset for a number of funds and companies as well, with the top 10 holding over 200,000 ETH. Learn more here.
About Crypto Projects upgrades and development
Opensea, the leading NFT marketplace, has acquired Gem, also an NFT marketplace that allows users to buy NFTs across multiple marketplaces with a single, low-cost transaction. According to Opensea, this move is to advance towards a “pro” experience for its users. Learn more here.
Coinbase has finally launched its NFT marketplace after months of waiting, which is expected to challenge Opensea’s leading position in this space. Learn more here.
Uniswap Labs has launched its own venture unit to invest in Web3 startups, focusing on building blockchain infrastructure, developer tools, and consumer-facing applications. Learn more here.
Terra Lab’s main Stablecoin UST has overtaken exchange giant Binance’s own BUSD, officially becoming the third largest stablecoin in the crypto space, with more than $17 billion in market cap. Learn more here.
At the same time, Terra’s cofounder and CEO Do Kwon purchased another $230 million worth of Bitcoin to back its Stablecoin UST. It is estimated that its BTC reserve is now around $1.6 billion. Learn more here.
Optimism, one of Ethereum’s main Layer 2, revealed the launch of its new token OP, accompanied by an airdrop season looking to reward early adopters and the larger community. Learn more here.
Shiba Inu launches a new burning mechanism for its main token SHIB: developers will reward members who burn their SHIB with “burntSHIB" in exchange, which can be used for staking to generate rewards. Learn more here.
In other news…
Ethereum’s Foundation released its 2021 financial report, confirming it holds 0.3% of the entire ETH supply, reinforcing its focus on decentralization. Learn more here.
Meta has recently announced that it plans to let creators sell digital assets on its Horizon Worlds Platform. However, seems like the plan is to take 47.5% of all sales of such assets, enraging potential creators and enthusiasts in this space. Learn more here.
Few cautionary tales…
Axie Infinity Gets Hacked: Axie Infinity, probably the most popular Play-to-Earn game, has recently reported that 173,600 Ethereum and 25.5M USDC, a combined value of over $600 million worth of USD, have been stolen from the game using a backdoor exploit. Sky Mavis has reported that they are working with cryptographers and law enforcement to recover the stolen crypto and that they are fully committed to reimbursing players. Learn more here.
Board Ape Yatch Club’s Instagram account and Discord server got hacked, with an unofficial mint link sent out to followers, resulting in $13M in NFTs stolen from users. Learn more here.
STEPN, a Solana based lifestyle app that allows users to gain cryptocurrencies through physical exercises, seems to have experienced some impersonators stealing users’ seed phrases. Learn more here.
That’s it for today!
It is always good to zoom out and see the bigger picture and keep educating ourselves in order to make choices that best serve our goals.
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