A look back at May’s crypto wreckage
(And a few highlights as well)
Re-sharing below the latest edition of #Web3 Weekly, my regular newsletter about decentralization. If you’d like to get it in your inbox every Sunday, subscribe here.
May was an extraordinary time for crypto, mostly for the worse. But now that we have month-end data in hand, there were a few highlights as well.
Bitcoin’s monthly decline for May (37.5%) was its second-worst plunge ever, topped only by a dismal September 2011 (down 40%), according to CoinDesk. June is off to a more promising start, though, with BTC showing a weekly gain of about 3% as of late Saturday.
Ether was off 12% in May, but on-chain volume and miner revenue hit new records. The Ethereum 2.0 network upgrade is also progressing, with more than 5 million ETH now staked to the new system’s deposit contract, The Block reports.
Decentralized finance (or DeFi for short) continued to be a big driver of Ethereum activity. Such protcols generated a record $370 million in revenue in May. And, of course, non-fungible tokens also continue to boom on Ethereum, with players like Sotheby’s and FTX getting more active in that category.
All of this helped push global crypto exchange volume over $2 trillion in May, also a new record according to The Block. So it would seem participation is continuing to expand among individual investors and big institutions alike.
The week’s other headlines:
- Miami is flexing its new blockchain cred. The city hosted the Bitcoin 2021 conference this weekend, the world’s first major in-person crypto gathering since the COVID pandemic started. Coincidentally, Miami also got some welcome corporate news, boosting Mayor Francis Suarez’s recent push to turn the city into a crypto hub. The exchange Blockchain.com announced it will move its headquarters from New York to Miami. And Borderless Capital launched a $25 million investment fund for digital payments projects in Miami.
- Coinbase rolled out some big additions. The exchange listed Dogecoin and integrated its crypto-backed debit cards with Apple Pay.
- Meanwhile, trading competitor eToro reported that it added 3.1 million users in the first quarter.
- U.S. authorities are ramping up ransomware enforcement. The Department of Justice will begin giving such investigations similar priority to terrorism cases, Reuters reports.
- The Securities and Exchange Commission sued five individuals in connection with Bitconnect’s 2018 collapse. The major U.S. market regulator alleges that the exchange was a $2 billion Ponzi scheme.
- AMC became a full-blown meme stock. No word from the SEC on that one yet.
- The Group of Seven countries reached a deal on minimum corporate taxation, in a move that could have major implications for Big Tech. Under the agreement, the world’s biggest economies (with the notable exception of China) would set a minimum corporate tax rate of 15% a year.
- The Reserve Bank of India clarified its stance on whether the country’s banks can offer customers crypto services. A ban issued in 2018 is no longer legally valid, RBI said.
- Singapore’s DBS Bank issued its first bond via blockchain, in a listing valued at $15 million.
- Nigeria blocked Twitter. The move appears to be retaliation for the social platform recently removing a tweet by president Muhammadu Buhari which Twitter said violated its “abusive behavior” policy. Now authorities are threatening to arrest anyone caught using the service in Nigeria.
- The Iron Sheik is a bitcoiner. I’m paraphrasing here, of course. The wrestling legend used somewhat more colorful language to make the point in a tweet recently.
That’s it for now. Thanks for spending some time with the newsletter today! A full revision history of it, including earlier drafts, is available here if you’re interested. If you’d like to get updates like this in your inbox every Sunday, please join our email list here.
