Crypto Market Update: Coinbase Receives Class F License to Conduct Digital Asset Services in Bermuda

Written by Van - Perfected by ChatGPT

Coinbase has been granted a Class F license by the Bermuda Monetary Authority, allowing it to conduct digital asset-related services in Bermuda. The exchange is also looking to establish an offshore derivatives exchange in the British Overseas Territory, offering perpetual swaps and other crypto derivatives. The exchange is also expanding in Abu Dhabi, Brazil, and Canada. You can read more about Coinbase’s decision and its potential impact here.

European Lawmakers Vote on Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) Bill to Regulate Digital Asset Services

European lawmakers are expected to vote on the Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) bill, which aims to regulate digital asset service providers and restrict transfers exceeding EUR 1,000 from an unregulated or self-hosted platform. MiCA will establish supervisory provisions for digital assets, consumer protections, and environmental safeguards. The bill intends to ensure stablecoin issuers maintain sufficient reserves to support redemptions. Some have raised concerns that MiCA will govern the asset class too closely and limit the potential for crypto to flourish, while others believe it could provide a model for competing jurisdictions, including the US.

Societe Generale-Forge launches EUR CoinVertible stablecoin for institutional clients

Societe Generale-Forge has launched EUR CoinVertible, a euro-pegged stablecoin for eligible institutional clients. It is based on Ethereum blockchain and traded under the ticker symbol EURCV. The stablecoin aims to bridge the gap between traditional capital markets and the digital assets ecosystem, providing a new settlement asset for on-chain transactions. SG-Forge emphasizes compliance with major market standards and complete segregation of collateral assets from the issuer.

Russia’s Central Bank to Pilot Cryptocurrency for International Settlements Amid Sanctions Pressure

Russia’s central bank aims to establish cryptocurrency mining institutions and authorised organisations for international settlements to ease the impact of sanctions. A pilot program will test the use of cryptocurrencies for settlement outside the country. However, the bank’s stance on cryptocurrency within the country is still unchanged. Industry analysts suggest that countries such as Russia and China acknowledge that crypto brings a significant shift in the way entities exchange value.

TransUnion Teams Up with Spring Labs and Quadrata to Offer Credit Scores on Blockchain-based Platforms

TransUnion has partnered with Spring Labs and Quadrata to offer credit scores for individuals applying for loans on blockchain-based protocols. The partnership aims to provide traditional credit scores while ensuring the privacy of applicants. This move is part of a larger trend in which traditional financial services and crypto markets have become more intertwined.

Elon Musk Threatens Legal Action Against Microsoft Over Twitter Data Usage

Elon Musk threatened to sue Microsoft for allegedly using Twitter data illegally to train its AI apps. Microsoft has not responded to Musk’s claims, but recently ended support for Twitter. Tesla maintained a consistent Bitcoin balance of $184 million in Q1 2023, with no overall gain or loss in value. Tesla’s relationship with cryptocurrency is inconsistent, and it now accepts Dogecoin for merchandise.

Former Terraform Labs Representatives Charged with Forgery of Official Documents in Montenegro

Do Kwon and Hong Chang-jun, former representatives of Terraform Labs, have been charged with forgery of official documents by Montenegro authorities. They were arrested in March while attempting to board a private flight to Dubai. The prosecutor’s office has requested an extension of their detention period.

Voyager Reaches Agreement with US Government for Binance $1 Billion Acquisition

Voyager has reached an agreement with the US government to proceed with the $1 billion acquisition of Binance. The government had initially objected to the deal due to an exculpation provision that would have protected Voyager from past and future civil or criminal liabilities to the government. However, the deal will now move forward without this provision. The acquisition had faced hurdles from various regulatory authorities, but it is expected that Voyager customers could recover up to 73% of their assets after the deal closes.

Former FTX US Chief Raises $5M for Institutional Trading Platform

Former FTX US chief Brett Harrison is launching a new trading platform, Architect Financial Technologies Inc., which will serve institutional investors and offer futures and crypto asset trading, as well as clearing services for futures trades in collaboration with StoneX Group Inc. and Wedbush Financial Services LLC. The platform also plans to offer OTC trading using several crypto market makers and multiple asset classes including equities, options, and fixed income. The firm raised $5 million in its initial funding round with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Circle Ventures, Anthony Scaramucci, and Motivate Venture Capital.

Deribit Set to Launch Zero-Fee Spot Exchange in Bid to Attract Retail Users

Deribit, the world’s largest crypto options exchange, is launching a zero-fee spot exchange on April 24. The exchange will initially offer trading with three pairs: BTC/USDC, ETH/USDC, and ETH/BTC. Deribit plans to attract more retail users with its spot trading launch and get a crypto license in Dubai while moving its headquarters to the city from Panama. The exchange won’t be available for users in the U.S. and some other restricted countries.

Crypto Lender BlockFi Granted Extension To File Exit Plan After Bankruptcy Filing

Crypto lender BlockFi has been granted an extension until May 15 to file an exit plan, five months after filing for bankruptcy. The company’s lawyer, Joshua Sussberg, said BlockFi is exploring the potential sale of its assets and is looking for an external backer for a potential restructuring deal. The company owes more than $10 billion to over 100,000 creditors. BlockFi filed for bankruptcy on November 28 and should have presented a plan by March 27. A committee of unsecured creditors had reportedly argued they should take over the bankruptcy case to help creditors recover their funds faster.

Bitcoin Drops Nearly 3% as Inactive Address Transfers $60.7 Million

Bitcoin recovered from a ten-day low of \(28,360 after US jobs data boosted investor confidence. However, the cryptocurrency failed to reclaim \)29,000 as support. Some analysts suggest BTC’s trajectory could be similar to the 2018 bear market, with the final capitulation phase seeing BTC trade lower than its realized price. Bid liquidity thinned below spot on Binance order book, with the nearest substantial support now at \(28,000. On the other hand, funding rates turned negative, and long liquidations cooled after April 19 saw the largest tally of 2023, reaching \)262 million.

It came as a Bitcoin address that had been inactive for nine years transferred 2,071.5 BTC (\(60.7 million) out today, and some speculate it's related to a long-time crypto users migration amid mysterious wallet-draining operation targeting old [wallets](https://coin360.com/glossary/crypto-wallets). The reason market-leading cryptocurrency has dropped by nearly 3% over the past 24 hours and is trading just below \)29,000 as of press time.

Source: CryptoQuant

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ETH Inflows Surpass Outflows as Users Restake Rewards for Better Returns

Ethereum also followed a similar pattern, with most major cryptocurrencies in the red. Despite a recent retracement, ETH inflows have started to surpass outflows and users are restaking their rewards for better returns. The total number of ETH staked has reversed its downward trajectory, and the staking rate has risen from 14.13% to 14.61% following the upgrade. Most stakers are applying for partial withdrawals of their accrued rewards and restaking them. The supply outside exchanges exceeded the exchange supply, ruling out concerns of immediate sell-off. The Open Interest in the ETH futures market has consistently remained over $7 billion since the launch of Shapella, indicating positive trader sentiment.

Source: Santiment

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Stablecoin Market Share Shrinks as Tether Dominates with 61.5% Market Cap

In the meantime, the market share of stablecoins is declining, with the aggregated valuation of the top four stablecoins falling by 23% from its peak of \(161 billion. The majority of this decline is due to the shrinking supplies of [USDC](https://coin360.com/coin/usd-coin-usdc) and [BUSD](https://coin360.com/coin/binance-usd-busd). Meanwhile, [Tether](https://coin360.com/coin/tether-usdt)'s market dominance has increased to 61.5%. Other stablecoins such as Pax Dollar and Gemini Dollars have seen increases in supply but represent a small proportion of the overall stablecoin ecosystem. The current [market cap](https://coin360.com/glossary/market-capitalization) of all stablecoins is \)132.3 billion, representing around 10.4% of the total crypto market capitalization.

Source: Glassnode

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Ripple’s XRP Sales Method Sparks Controversy, Questioning By Community

A Forbes article published recently about Ripple’s sales of XRP through a Malaysian partner, Tranglo, has caused controversy in the community. Ripple supposedly lends XRP to its partners through ODL to offer transfers via XRP with reduced fees, which allows them to circumvent the indirect sale of XRP. Tiffany Hayden, a prominent supporter of the token, questions why Ripple is not offering discounts to all customers if it reimburses partners for charging lower fees for XRP transactions. Ripple CTO David Schwartz believes that the company’s goal is to make XRP as widespread as possible to sustain its business activity. Currently, there is 42.5 billion XRP locked in Ripple escrow accounts. At the time of writing, XRP is marking a -2.56% drop, an average number compared to other major altcoins.

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a16z’s Crypto Arm Reveals New Rust-Based Rollup Client for Optimism: Magi

Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto arm has announced the development of a new rollup client called “Magi” for Optimism, which is written in the programming language Rust. Magi is expected to improve the client diversity and resilience of the entire OP Stack ecosystem, which powers the Ethereum layer-2 solution Optimism. It will take the place of a consensus client in the OP Stack and work alongside an execution client. Magi is still under development and will take some months before it is production-ready. OP dropped as much as 7% to its daily low of \(2.4766 before bouncing back to \)2.5737 with a -2.33% loss.

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ApeCoin Community Donates $1 Million to Support Ethereum Development

The ApeCoin community has voted to donate $1 million to support the development of Ethereum. The proposal aims to give back to the Ethereum community, fund hackathons and public good initiatives, and further the development of account abstraction and initiatives related to NFTs, DAOs, and zk scaling. The motivation behind the donation is to support Ethereum as a shared public good that benefits from collective appreciation and responsibility. Despite the news, APE still posted a 3% decline throughout the day.

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Crypto Mixer Developer Granted Surveillance Release by Dutch Court as TORN Surges 7.95%

A Dutch court has granted the request of Alexey Pertsev, the developer of crypto mixer Tornado Cash, to be released under surveillance. He will be released on April 26 and can attend his hearings from home with an ankle monitor. Pertsev was previously rejected due to being a flight risk and has been in prison for over 250 days since his arrest in 2022. Thanks to the narrative, TORN has soared by 7.95% to reach its highest level since mid-September, 2022.

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Romania’s ICI to Launch NFT Trading Platform on MultiversX

Romania’s National Institute for Research and Development in Informatics (ICI) is set to launch an NFT trading platform on MultiversX, named “ICI Decentralized Services”. It will begin trading on April 26 and offer various NFT collections ranging from Romanian sports teams to libraries. The ICI will also offer an NFT collection called “Past Present Future”, highlighting technological advancements achieved in the past 50 years. EGLD is trading near its lowest point in a month of $39.446.

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Injective Protocol Enhances Security Measures with Apollo Safe Multi-Sig Wallet

Recently, Injective Protocol deployed Apollo Safe to its mainnet, providing an extra layer of security through its multi-sig protocol. This protocol requires multiple private keys to access a single user wallet, protecting users from hackers and private key theft. The Apollo multi-sig wallet on Injective adds an extra layer of security by requiring confirmation from other signatories before approving transactions. After a winning streak, INJ went South today with a -10% decrease.

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1inch Launches Decentralized Exchange Aggregator on Ethereum Scaling Network zkSync Era

1inch, a decentralized exchange aggregator, is launching a version of its platform onto Ethereum scaling network zkSync Era, which uses zero-knowledge cryptography for faster speeds and lower fees. By porting to zkSync Era, 1inch becomes one of the biggest-name crypto apps to launch onto a zkEVM. 1inch is also launching its limit order protocol onto zkSync Era. 1INCH hasn’t responded positively to the news as the token is trading with a -2.76% loss.

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Radix and LayerZero Collaborate for Web3 Interoperability Solution

Radix, a Layer-1 protocol, has partnered with LayerZero, an interoperability protocol, to integrate LayerZero with the Radix Babylon public network. This integration will allow cross-chain communication and asset transfers to the Radix ecosystem, benefiting both platforms and their users. Web3 interoperability provides various advantages, including increased functionality, liquidity sharing, and enhanced security posture. The integration is set to launch in the second half of 2023, showcasing the potential of cross-chain interoperability. Similar to INJ, XRD recorded a drop after significant gains.

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Liquidity Platform Agility Experiences Rapid Growth, But Concerns Arise Over AGI Token Code

The liquid staking sector has gained attention after Ethereum’s successful Shapella hard fork. Agility, a liquidity distribution platform for liquid staking tokens, has experienced significant growth in recent weeks, with almost \(400 million flowing into its staking pools in the past seven days. Its total value locked has increased by over 643% to \)467 million since April 12, and its token AGI has jumped roughly 185%. However, some have raised concerns about the code for the AGI token, which allows privileged accounts to mint more tokens and pause activity in the smart contract.

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Binance Joins Polymesh as Node Operator and Offers POLYX Staking Services

Binance will become a node operator on Polymesh and offer staking of the layer-1 blockchain’s POLYX token through its platform by the end of the week. Binance will help run the blockchain and provide staking services to holders of the chain’s native token. The partnership aims to make regulated asset trading more accessible to a wide range of clients. Binance will become authorized as a Polymesh node operator and join the 17 existing node operators. The price of POLYX has been around $0.248 lately and jumped as much as 43.6% in the past 24 hours.

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Summary of Market Events and Price Action

As a summary of today’s events and price action in the market, it is crucial to note the following key points:

• Coinbase is prepared for an exodus?
• European lawmakers vote on the Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) bill
• Societe Generale-Forge launches a stablecoin called EUR CoinVertible
• Russia’s Central Bank plans to pilot cryptocurrency
• TransUnion to offer credit scores on blockchain-based platforms
• Elon Musk threatens legal action against Microsoft
• Bitcoin drops nearly 3%, remains under $29,000
• ETH inflows surpass outflows, price still under $2,000
• USDT dominates the stablecoin market
• Ripple’s XRP sales method sparks controversy
• Big news for OP, TORN, EGLD, POLYX
• APE community donates $1 million to support Ethereum development
• XRD, 1INCH, INJ see further development
• AGI drops sharply

Top Altcoin Gainers and Losers

Gainers:

BitTorrent New BTT (+7.21%)

Render Token RNDR (+6.27%)

Kaspa KAS (+5.27%)

Losers:

Radix XRD (-13.74%)

Injective INJ (-10.29%)

Rocket Pool RPL (-9.00%)

NFT Market Map

Sotheby’s is facilitating the sale of an art collection called “Grails,” which includes digital artwork owned by the defunct hedge fund Three Arrows Capital and its NFT-collecting fund, Starry Night Capital. The collection includes NFTs from notable artists and valuable projects in Web3, and will be offered via auctions, private sales, and other methods. Some of the highlighted pieces include Art Blocks Fidenza #216 and CryptoPunks NFT #6649. Sotheby’s will honor creators’ royalties for secondary sales, per its “Grails” webpage. The first auction from the collection will take place in May 2022.

Top non-fungible tokens (NFTs), including MutantApeYachtClub, Cool Cats, and y00ts, have lost value in the past 24 hours as the crypto market remains muted. The global NFT market cap has decreased by close to 3% over the previous day. Even the once-dominant performers such as CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club have seen a decline in value. Cool Cats’ floor price has dropped by more than 60% in the last three months, according to Opensea analytics. The recent decrease in the NFT floor comes on the heels of a weakening crypto market, with Bitcoin falling back below $30,000.