Binance and Governments - The WAGMI Journal #27

The richest man you might not know about.

In today’s issue:

The crypto market is down with the global crypto market cap sitting slightly above $2.6 trillion. SAND continues its rise amongst large-cap assets while BTC and ETH price action continues to chop sideways. In other news, Binance seeks investment from Sovereign Wealth Funds, Citi to hire 100 people for Digital Assets, and MoonPay Hits $3.4 Billion in Valuation.

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Starting today, our daily issue will be sent out before 9 am EST.

We’re continually improving our content — based on our readers’ suggestions, we are working to add:

• a section showing open interest and other trading-related metrics 24-h changes

• a section showing newly released projects

Please reach out if you have any other ideas or would like us to recap a segment of the market.

- Curated by Marco Manoppo (@manoppomarco)

📰Market News

⎆Binance Seeks Investments from SWFs

The world’s largest crypto exchange recently stated in an interview that it is looking for investments from Sovereign Wealth Funds to improve its relationship with governments and regulatory bodies around the world. The firm is extremely selective in choosing the right SWFs since it might tie them to specific countries. This move makes perfect sense for Binance since it doesn’t really require any funding due to its massive success, but realize that the number one risk is increasing regulation.

⎆Citi to Hire 100 People for Digital Assets

Led by Puneet Singhvi as Citi’s new head of digital assets, the bank wants to hire 100 people as part of its effort to push into the digital asset space. Other bulge bracket banks such as JPM, Bank of America, and Goldman Sachs have also expanded into the digital asset space by launching research division, wealth management, and investment products. We’ll see more of such moves as legacy banks realize that it is either innovate, join, or die.

⎆MoonPay Hits $3.4 Billion in Valuation

The PayPal of crypto has received a whopping $3.4B valuation after its recent funding round of $555M led by Tiger Global and Coatue. The firm that was launched in 2019 helped users directly purchase crypto from major payment gateways such as bank transfers, credit cards, Apple Pay, and much more. More than $2 billion in transactions have been facilitated by MoonPay in the past two years.

👨🏻‍💻Decentralized Finance (DeFi)

• Oasis Foundation Launches Emerald, an EVM-Compatible Smart Contract Environment

• Crypto Lender Celsius Network Invests $300M in North American Bitcoin Mining Operations: Report

• Celo startup cLabs Alleges Misconduct After Top Developer Exits

🏛Governance - Active Proposals

• Gitcoin - FDD Workstream Q4 2021 Budget

• Babylon Finance - BIP-4: Uniswap V3 Pool + Harvest Vault

• Idle - IIP-17: Upgrade IdleTokenGovernance implementation to remove flash loans

• Pool Together - PTIP-44: Continuation of C4 Partnership

🦮NFT & Metaverse

• Luxury NFT Market Could Hit $56B by 2030: Morgan Stanley

• Sotheby’s Metaverse Announces Latest and Largest NFT Charity Auction

• Axie Infinity Updates Its WhitePaper

• Wolf Game NFTs Spark Frenzy with Sales of $52M in Five Days

• Rare ‘Dune’ Manuscript Bought on DAO’s Behalf for $3M, but It Only Raised $700K

• South China Morning Post Releases White Paper for NFT Standard Built on Flow Blockchain

• Monty Python’s Terry Gilliam Is Auctioning His Surrealist Art as an NFT

Top Sales (Last 24-h); Source: https://dappradar.com/nft

📈Deal Flow & Capital Raise

• Talis - 2.3M Unknown Round

• C3 - $3.6M Unknown Round

• Syn-City - $8M Unknown Round

• Royal - 55M Series A

• MoonPay - $555M Series A

• GRIID - $525M Credit Facility

⚖️Regulatory Update

• Binance Seeks Investments From Sovereign Wealth Funds

• Russia’s Chief Taxman Says Crypto Could Erode State Taxation Profits

• FCA Seeks Crypto Forensics Help Amid AML Registration Backlog

• WEF Releases Resource Suite for CBDCs and Stablecoins

• Biden Re-nominates Powell as Fed Chair, With Brainard as Vice Chair

• ECB Extends PISA Framework to Cover Crypto and Electronic Wallets

📚Noteworthy Reads

• Kain.eth’s Thread on The Story Behind Yield Farming

• Homie Stark’s Thread on Why I’m Betting on Solana Over Ethereum

• Chris Dixon’s Thread on Why Demand for Blockchains will Always Outpace Supply

Feel free to reach out to manoppomarco@gmail.com — feedbacks and constructive criticisms are much appreciated.

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DISCLAIMER:

All the information presented on The WAGMI Journal publication and its affiliation is strictly for educational purposes only. It should not be construed or taken as financial, legal, investment, and any other forms of advice. Writers, authors, and contributors of The WAGMI Journal may hold any assets mentioned in the issue.