THIS NEWSLETTER IS SPONSORED BY | Happy Saturday! New in the noise: crypto M&A is heating up, the "metaverse'" keeps happening, and that infrastructure bill that caused a bunch of crypto-related commotion a while back is in limbo. Signal below. Mike Orcutt here. | | | The number of merger and acquisition deals in the crypto industry has hit an all-time high this year. Frank Chaparro reports that most of the deal activity has been concentrated in firms focused on crypto investing and trading. The trend reflects the maturity of the crypto industry: the leading firms are now big enough to strategically acquire startups, as is common in other technology industries. | What's behind dYdX's explosive growth and skyrocketing revenue? The decentralized derivatives exchange is proving to be one of the first success stories on Ethereum's "Layer 2," reports Tim Copeland. One factor behind the meteoric rise is the technology under the hood. But a healthy dose of token-related incentives have sweetened the deal for users, Tim explains. | This startup wants to build the "Art Blocks of metaverse architecture." For his latest interview piece, Ryan Weeks sat down Rayan Boutaleb, co-founder of Cyber, a startup intent on creating the future of digital art display. The platform boasts 140,000 monthly active users, including some of the best-known collectors. | There were 44 key crypto hires and moves in September. The crypto industry kept up its frenetic pace of hiring last month, reports Tim Copeland, who is back with his monthly roundup of important personnel moves. Check it out. | ICYMI: George Soros's family office owns bitcoin. An SEC filing shows that Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis purchased up to $100,000 worth of bitcoin in August. US-listed bitcoin mining firms have stockpiled more than a billion dollars worth of the currency. US Bank partnered with NYDIG to offer crypto custody services to its institutional clients. A new paper from the US Federal Reserve said digital currencies could "reduce reliance" on the dollar. Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey criticized the Biden administration's handling of its forthcoming stablecoin report. The US Department of Justice is forming a "National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team." Congressman Patrick McHenry introduced a bill that would establish a safe harbor for digital tokens. NFT project Bored Ape Yacht Club plans to launch its own token next year. Notorious art forger Wolfgang Beltracchi is working on an NFT project. The company behind the popular NFT game Axie infinity raised $152 million in a Series B round led by a16z. New NFT marketplace Inifinity plans to airdrop tokens to OpenSea users. NFT startup Dapper Labs entered a long-term partnership with Chainalysis. Dapper Labs also acquired Brud, which creates CGI influencers, to build a new unit focused on DAOs. Investment platform Republic is offering 'security NFTs' for fans of music who want to invest in songs and albums. Visionrare, an NFT marketplace that sold "fantasy equity," shut down after one day of beta testing. Binance shut down derivatives trading in South Africa. Binance US promoted its president, Brian Shroder, to CEO. MoneyGram partnered with the Stellar Development Foundation. Neobrokerage firm Public will launch crypto trading tools.
| | | A historical overview of consensus and DoS incidents on major blockchains. In the history of blockchains, at least a dozen outages or accidental forks have occurred. In his latest piece for The Block Research (subscription required), Igor Igamberdiev examines each of those cases and explains why they occurred.
Two massive bills are in Congressional limbo. What does it mean for crypto? The Biden Administration's signature pieces of legislation, the Build Back Better Act and the Infrastructure and Jobs Act, are both facing delays and uncertainty. Both bills have crypto-specific language, including a controversial definition of a "broker" that has drawn the ire of the crypto industry. So what do these delays mean for crypto? Kollen Post explains. | | | THIS NEWSLETTER IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY | DeFi + TradFi = HyFi — Explore Hybrid Finance with Vesper The worlds of traditional and decentralized finance are rapidly colliding. But one DeFi platform has anticipated this trend since the beginning. Vesper is the easiest way to HODL your crypto. Users can deposit ETH, WBTC, USDC, USDT, LINK, DAI, or UNI and Vesper routes that crypto through the DeFi protocols that most reflet their desired goals
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| | | New York, Kentucky, Georgia and Texas are winning the war to attract bitcoin miners. That's according to CNBC, which reports that 19.9% of bitcoin's US-based hash rate is in New York, 18.7% is in Kentucky, 17.3% is in Georgia, and 14% is in Texas. | | | "With the Brexit, that's definitely over."
—Peter Smith, co-founder and CEO of Blockchain.com, reflecting on London's status as a global fintech hub. Smith was speaking at the Token2049 conference in London. | | | You are receiving this e-mail because you are subscribed to The Block's free newsletter. If someone shared this newsletter with you, you can easily subscribe to receive it in your inbox here. If you're looking for even more content, we have a separate newsletter for The Block Research, which you can sign-up for here. | | | | |
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