Reading 2022-03-25

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raised $450 million in the latest funding round that included investments from SoftBank Vision Fund 2 (9984.T), Microsoft and Singapore's Temasek
ConsenSys, founded by Joseph Lubin, is an Ethereum blockchain firm whose products help developers, enterprises and users build applications geared towards the so-called "Web3" space

After receiving more than $100 million in crypto since Russia’s invasion, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has signed a bill that legalizes crypto in the country

A last-minute veto from the EU parliament rejected an amendment to the crypto regulation bill that would ban proof-of-work coins such as Bitcoin and Ethereum because of environmental concerns. Though this was not an outright ban of crypto, it would have banned the two most valued cryptocurrencies in the market, essentially cutting the main value of crypto from EU users

South Korea has elected its new crypto-friendly president, Yoon Suk-yeol, who has vowed to deregulate the crypto industry and introduce laws that favor crypto investors

Dubai has established its first crypto regulation law and a crypto regulatory agency to oversee it, the Dubai Virtual Assets Regulatory Agency. The agency is tasked with overseeing the market and any providers of said assets

Finance Minister Lawrence Wong was addressing parliament that income from NFTs will be taxed, while capital gains from NFTs will not be taxed

Galaxy Digital Holdings has just announced the first over-the-counter crypto trade to banking giant Goldman Sachs for a Bitcoin option.
Galaxy Digital is a technology-driven financial services and investment management firm that provides institutions and direct clients with a full suite of financial solutions spanning the digital assets ecosystem.

Even though Malaysia has had a rough start with crypto (bitcoin mining rigs being seized and such), there is a proposition to make Bitcoin a legal tender in the country. “We hope the government can allow this. We are trying to see how we can legalize this so that we can develop youth participation in crypto and assist them,” says Zahidi Zainul Abidin, Deputy Minister at Malaysia’s Communication Ministry. Adding another country to the list of places where bitcoin is widely accepted.

Finimize 2022-03-24

The entire crypto market is big and growing fast: it’s now worth $1.7 trillion, having grown tenfold between the start of 2020 and the end of 2021. And while that’s still a fraction of the $469 trillion sloshing around the global financial system as a whole, it’s still bigger than the $1.2 trillion subprime mortgage market that triggered the global financial crisis

Stake 2022-03-16

One thing that unifies many crypto diehards is the need for institutional investment. Big banks and companies adding crypto to their balance sheet would theoretically increase the demand massively
Why would a company add crypto in the first place? In the case of Bitcoin, there are a few characteristics that make it valuable; they revolve around Bitcoin as a store of value and an alternative to traditional, centralised banking. Of course, the financial upside is also appealing to many investors as well as the PR such investments generate. Generally, other cryptocurrencies haven’t been adopted by institutions yet
The biggest institutional holder of Bitcoin is Grayscale. The investment company holds roughly 650,000 Bitcoins on their books, over 3% of the total supply. During their first day of operation in September 2013, Bitcoin was trading at US$125 each
MicroStrategy famously went from an unknown company to the leader of the equity-crypto revolution. At the end of 2021, the company owned 125,000 $BTC at an average price of US$49,000.
Then there is Tesla, the company has added 43,000 $BTC over the course of 2021
Just like other assets, derivative markets exist for certain cryptocurrencies too. Just like futures on wheat or gold or the S&P 500, futures can be purchased on Bitcoin