MARKET
Traditional inter Banking transfer system SWIFT starts testing a CBDC payment solution.
After a litany of offenses the S&P 500 has removed Tesla from its ESG index fund.
Tesla slumps 7% on Wednesday and is down over 40 percent in the last few months.
Twitter down 20% on the week as the company continues to openly dispute with potential owner lord supreme commander Elon Musk and Tesla and Twitter Stocks struggle.
Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley predict more than a one in four chance that the US falls into a recession sometime in the next year.
While Retail giants Walmart and Target release disappointing numbers, sounding more alarms inflation continues to weight down consumer spending.
Discount stores across the board are in double digit percentage losses on the week, with Target down over 20 percent on the week.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/18/why-tesla-was-kicked-out-of-the-sp-500s-esg-index.html
https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/global-markets-wrapup-1-2022-05-19/
https://finviz.com/screener.ashx?v=711&f=sec_basicmaterials
https://finviz.com/screener.ashx?v=711&f=sec_consumerdefensive
BTC
Russian Minister of Industry and Trade says its only a matter of time before BTC legalized as official currency.
Bitcoin volatility continues as the 7th red weekly candle is confirmed.
Crypto Fear and Greed index hits 8 the lowest it’s been since spring of 2020.
Despite BTC volatility and apparent sell off addresses with over 1 Bitcoin hits new all-time high.
https://cryptoslate.com/bitcoin-closes-7th-red-weekly-candle-for-first-time-ever/
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/markets/russia-will-eventually-legalize-bitcoin
https://finbold.com/crypto-fear-whats-next-for-btc/
ETH
Ethereum fell below 2k yesterday revealing a bullish divergence pattern.
Crypto’s second largest coin pushed its way back over $2000 and continues to trades in that range this morning.
Ethereum dev team increases its bug bounty to $500,000 ahead of the The Ropsten merge expected to take place the beginning of June.
Cloudflare looks to test launch Ethereum validator nodes.
With Ethereum’s upcoming move to proof of stake, an eth partnership with the webs largest DDoS mitigation service would be interesting.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/ethereum-on-track-for-testnet-merge-in-june/ar-AAXsaKe
https://u.today/ethereum-falls-below-2k-this-indicator-reveals-hidden-bullish-divergence-on-price
TOP CAPS
A16z releases their state of crypto report for 2022.
Global market cap up 270%, this data was from end of year, since then we’ve fell.
Developer activity up 68%, while social media and startup continue to rise at similar paces.
Web3 is great for creators in, openseas take rate is 2.5% compared to up to 30% from the apple app stores, or 45% from YouTube.
Hard to tell what is truth or fud surrounding the Terra recovery so take all information coming out with a giant pitcher of salt.
What is confirmed is that Terra’s in House legal team has resigned and have stepped away from TerraForm Labs.
Do Kwon has been called to appear in front of the South Korean congress to answer questions on the Luna/UST crash.
https://a16zcrypto.com/state-of-crypto-report-a16z-2022/
https://www.newspim.com/news/view/20220517000451
LENDING
Web3-native blockchain analysis tool from Chainalysis aims to track and visualize smart contract transactions.
The tool places some much-needed focus on NFT’s and Defi.
Chainalysis estimates that $1.8 billion worth of crypto was stolen last year alone through Defi platforms.
A week ago, Lending Protocol Fortress lost everything due to an Oracle Price Manipulation Attack.
Attackers made off with 2.98m worth of ETH and DAI.
Fortress was a BSC algorithmic money market and synthetic stablecoin protocol that provided credit and lending to its users.
In some better news Ramp Network expands its presence into the US.
RAMP SWAPS LLC has registered as a Money Service Business enabling it to operate in 38 states.
Ramp offers fiat Onboarding, KYC, and fraud detection on its platform.
From $15 on April first Venus Protocol fell flat on its face down to a $3.30.
Starting to realize its oversold areas Venus has had a nice pump up to $6.48 today.
Down 89% on the year but up 50% in the last 7 days.
Trufi sees some decent gains this morning with AAVE and OOKI in the green as well.
https://blog.ramp.network/ramp-us-expands-presence-in-us-with-fincen-regulation
GAMING
Finally, some green days in the crypto gaming space.
Axie Infinity sees steady declines in new user accounts since last august.
Axie’s economy runs primarily on acquiring new users to the platform and putting new money into the ecosystem.
A falling user base could see the systems economy take a nose dive.
Azra Games raises $15 million in seed funding.
Partnering with a16z, Coinbase, Franklin Templeton, and NFX.
Azra plans to expand its sci-fi fantasy RPG with web3 elements and virtual collectibles.
The firm was founded and Ex Electronic Arts (EA) general manager Mark Otero.
a16z announces a $600 million fund to invest in the gaming industry.
“defining how we socialize, play, and work over the next century,” according to a their post.
a16z has a decade long track record of supporting online gaming ventures including Zynga, Oculus, Riot, and even Epic Games.
Solona NFT’s are starting to make their impact heard as magic eden overtakes open seas in daily trading volume.
With 275,000 daily transactions on magic eden according to Dap Radar.
Its transaction volumed dwarfed the 50,000 of its competitor Open Sea.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/magic-eden-tops-opensea-daily-154244816.html
https://cointelegraph.com/news/how-will-gamefi-and-p2e-blockchain-gaming-evolve-in-2022-report
