A happy milestone

#Web3Weekly: Oct. 2–8, 2022

As ever, I’m re-sharing below the latest edition of #Web3Weekly, my regular newsletter about decentralization. I’m also happy to report, #Web3Weekly has now partnered with our first-ever sponsor: TechCrunch! Welcome, TC — and thank you for supporting #Web3Weekly’s coverage of all things decentralized.

As a special offer, the 50th subscriber who signs up over the next few days to receive #Web3Weekly by email will get a free all-access pass to either TechCrunch’s Disrupt conference (Oct. 18–20 in San Francisco) or their TC Sessions: Crypto conference (Nov. 17 in Miami).

You really can’t go wrong with these options, whichever you choose. (I’ll be in touch by email to finalize details if you win the free pass.) Disrupt is already the premier tech conference to connect with the most innovative startup founders and venture investors, while TC Sessions: Crypto is an exciting new event that TechCrunch is launching to serve the web3 community.

Sign up for the #Web3Weekly email list today for a chance to attend one of these events for free!

On to the week’s major headlines:

• Binance suffered a hack that may have cost the company more than $100 million. Binance, the world’s busiest crypto exchange, publicly disclosed the issue on Friday after noticing an exploit of its cross-chain “bridge” that allows users to swap tokens built for different networks.
• Miners of the two biggest crypto tokens are hurting. Revenue from validating Ethereum transactions fell more than 50% in September, reflecting the initial effect of the Merge around mid-month. Meanwhile, Bitcoin mining revenue fell 16.2% in September to about $550.5 million industrywide, the lowest total since November 2020, according to The Block. In addition, the difficulty of mining new BTC tokens is poised to increase this week.
• Important new datapoints on stablecoins: Tether’s chief technology officer said U.S. Treasury bills comprise almost 60% of the token’s reserves. Meanwhile, The Block reports that Circle has removed $9 billion of USDC from circulation since July due to users redeeming the stablecoin for actual U.S. dollars.
• The Securities and Exchange Commission fined Kim Kardashian $1.26 million for not publicly disclosing that she was paid to promote the EMAX token on her Instagram feed. The case may set an important precedent for other celebrity endorsers and the growing cohort of crypto projects hiring them.
• U.S. regulators busily cracked down on some non-famous people as well. The SEC also filed charges against two crypto firms for an alleged pump-and-dump fraud and ordered the shutdown of another for an alleged Ponzi scheme targeting Latino investors. Meanwhile, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission sued the founder of Digitex for not registering his trading platform properly. In a separate case, the CFTC also got a federal judge to agree it was OK for them to serve a lawsuit to Ooki DAO using a tech support bot and forum post.
• The research firm Elliptic estimates criminals have laundered $4 billion through decentralized exchanges, bridges, and coin swaps.
• The metaverse platform Decentraland has a $1.3 billion valuation and… 38 daily active users? So says CoinDesk in its reporting for this story about the promise of metaverse versus the reality of limited adoption so far.
• Yuga Labs launched a new community council to guide future initiatives based on the Bored Ape Yacht Club, a popular collection of non-fungible tokens created by Yuga.
• Chainlink unveiled a new tokenomics plan, including new staking rewards for LINK tokens.
• Crypto custodian Anchorage Digital unveiled a raft of new partnerships to reach more investors in Asia.
• Coinbase is expanding its services in Australia.
• MasterCard launched a new product called Crypto Secure designed to make crypto purchases safer. It uses artificial intelligence to assess the fraud risk associated with individual merchants.
• Retirement giant Fidelity Investments filed with U.S. regulators for approval to launch a new Ethereum Index Fund.
• CoinDesk reports that Elon Musk considered launching a new blockchain-based social messaging service prior to announcing his bid for Twitter.
• What’s in a name? Liquid Death, a facetiously monikered beverage company that sells canned mountain water, just raised a venture round at a $700 million valuation, according to MarketWatch. Go figure…

That’s it for now. Thanks for spending some time with the newsletter today! If you would like to receive updates like this in your inbox every Sunday, please join our email list here.

A brief disclaimer: This content is intended for journalistic purposes only, not as investment advice. For the latter, please DYOR and consult appropriate financial pros to make the most suitable choices for your individual needs.

Best wishes for a healthy and productive week ahead.