“An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.” — Benjamin Franklin
Ethereum looks good to hold support at $1700, the next key levels to break are $1800 and $2000.
It won’t be easy, with the broader macro conditions looking gloomy. Though, with the upcoming merge, perhaps ETH has a chance.
Dev Spotlight 👨💻
Stack has currently identified 86 projects with a recent spike in activity. Here’s one free insight. Subscribe to view them all here.
XYO is a technology protocol designed to improve the validity, certainty, and value of data. We are building a data marketplace that gives users a gold-standard for any apps, websites, and blockchain technologies that rely on trusted data.
The devs have been busy over the past few months. Always great to see continued activity throughout the bear market, while valuations are this cheap:
Weekly Roundup
Aave DAO Approves GHO Stablecoin Proposal
The Decentralized Finance (DeFi) protocol Aave had a proposal for the creation of an algorithmic stablecoin known as GHO. This stablecoin has received a green flag from the AAVE DAO. Furthermore, the organization behind Aave, Aave Companies, put up the request for this stablecoin on July 7, and voting began on July 28, 2022, whilst ending on July 31, 2022. Out of the total 1,793 votes, over 99.99% voted in favor of the proposal.
Meta rolled out NFT Support on Instagram for 100 Countries.
The Chief Executive Officer behind Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, declared that the business is starting to expand NFT support for Instagram to multiple other countries. Specifically, the social network's initial NFT test launch in May was followed by the expansion, and now, more than 100 countries in Africa, Asia-Pacific, The Middle East, and the Americas will gain access to the features. This means that individuals and businesses will be able to share their NFTs on Instagram due to the expansion, according to an updated blog post on August 4, 2022.
US and UK Regulators Partner on Broader Crypto Regulation, SEC charges 11 people in alleged $300 million Ponzi scheme, and BlackRock partners with Coinbase
Regulators located within the US and the UK have met to discuss the broader cryptocurrency regulatory initiatives.
The group held a meeting on July 21, in which participants included officials and senior staff from HM Treasury, the Bank of England, the Financial Conduct Authority as well as the US Treasury Department, alongside the Federal Reserve Board, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Office of Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Wow, that’s a lot of acronyms.
Additionally, the Securities and Exchange Commission said it charged 11 people for their roles in the creation and promotion of a fraudulent crypto pyramid and Ponzi scheme, which managed to raise more than $300 million from millions of retail investors on a global scale, called Forsage, which claimed to be a decentralized smart contract platform.
BlackRock has conducted a partnership with the cryptocurrency exchange known as Coinbase to offer institutional investors access to Bitcoin (BTC).
Crypto Bridge Nomad Drained for $190M and Nomad offers a bounty after the hack, Solana Wallets Targeted in Multimillion-Dollar Hack and Slope wallets blamed for the attack.
The Nomad cross-chain token bridge was exploited when attackers drained the pool of almost all of its funds, which resulted in an attack that totaled around $190 million, according to data from DeFi Llama. Nomad allows users to send and receive tokens between different blockchains.
Nomad then started offering a bounty to recoup funds that were spirited away from the hack and highlighted security vulnerabilities in the digital token sector. Anyone who returned at least 90% of the stolen funds would be viewed as a white hat hacker that seeks to spotlight vulnerabilities, and the remaining 10% would be rewarded.
Over 8,000 internet-connected hot cryptocurrency wallets were compromised in a Solana Wallet hack, including Phantom, Slope, and TrustWallet.
The Web3 wallet provider known as Slope has been connected to the recent hack of Solana-based wallets and is considered largely responsible for the security exploit that stole crypto from thousands of Solana users.
MicroStrategy CEO drops CEO role, as the company reports $918M impairment Charge on Bitcoin Holdings in Q2, Robinhood posts a 44% slump in revenue and slashes employee count by 23%, while Jack Dorsey-led Block posts $1.5B in Q2 profits.
MicroStrategy Inc. co-founder Michael Saylor stepped down from his Chief Executive Officer role and announced that he would put his focus on Bitcoin (BTC).
Furthermore, MicroStrategy took a non-cash digital asset impairment charge of $917.8 million on its Bitcoin (BTC) holdings in the second quarter, which was up from $170.1 million in the first quarter, alongside $424.8 million in the second quarter of 2021, based on the latest earnings report.
Robinhood Markets Inc. announced that they would reduce 23% of their staff, as it posted a 44% decline in revenue on slumping trading activity, in an earnings announcement that came a day earlier than scheduled and even beat analyst expectations.
Block Inc. posted $1.47B worth of profit in Q2, a company run by Jack Dorsey. Bitcoin (BTC) trading services profit, however, only accounted for $41 million of that figure, with the firm citing the price volatility as well as the lack of consumer demand.
Thanks for reading,
James