Bitfinity Weekly: New Year's News
Welcome to Issue #87 of Bitfinity Weekly for our #BITFINIANS community. If this newsletter was forwarded to you, sign up here.
What's in Today's Email?
- Global Crypto News
- This Week in our Blog
- NFT Market Bytes
- Tweet of the Week
- Meme Time
- A Matter of Opinion
Global Crypto News
🪐 Out Of Orbit: Orbit Chain, a web3 infrastructure platform, experienced a major security breach in their cross-chain Orbit bridge. The attackers drained a total of $81.5 million worth of crypto, and on-chain analysis seems to indicate that the responsible party has been involved in multiple cyberattacks, "using tools and patterns of the well-known Lazarus group", a North Korean hacker team.
⚡ No Second Option: MicroStrategy's executive chairman Michael Saylor has submitted a regulatory filing with the SEC (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission) announcing his intent to sell 310,000 shares of MicroStrategy. Saylor had previously made a comment during a company earnings call that he planned to sell vested options to buy more Bitcoin for his personal holdings.
🇰🇷 Going Seoul-o: Huobi Korea is fettering its operations on January 29th, citing a difficult "business environment" as a reason for the closure. Huobi Korea was first established in 2017, beginning as the Korean satellite branch of international crypto exchange HTX; however the two companies parted ways last January. Huobi Korea's closure follows that of other small Korean exchanges, such as Cashierest and Coinbit.
🫢 Turkey Hunt: The Turkish government is accusing Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency, of using cryptocurrency to recruit spies to monitor and track Hamas members living in Turkey. On Tuesday, Turkey's interior minister Ali Yerlikaya announced the detention of 34 individuals with ties to Mossad following a series of raids across the country. The raids also resulted in the seizure of several digital assets, which have not been made public yet.
This Week in our Blog
There's a lot of hype and confusion about inscriptions--what they are, how they work, and why people are so excited about them across all different blockchain ecosystems. We clear up the mysteries in this deep dive:
Hans
Although Bitcoin is the oldest blockchain, it is also arguably one of the least developed ecosystems in crypto. However this lack of infrastructure in Bitcoin means there is tremendous growth potential ahead:
Hans
NFT Market Bytes
💳 Members Only: International payment giant Visa has launched a merchant service this week that provides web3 customer solutions for businesses. The new program, the Visa Web3 Loyalty , offers a platform for merchants to offer gamified giveaways, augmented reality treasure hunts, and other engagement activities where customers can accrue loyalty points and digital collectibles like NFTs.
⛵ Public Goods: "Steamboat Willie" entered the public domain this week. The 1928 animated short film features early versions of Mickey and Minnie Mouse, both iconic characters of Disney, a company notorious for protecting their IP. Since media in the public domain are not subject to copyright protection, the NFT market has seen an influx of "Steamboat Willie" collections, like a 2k collection by Alexander Taub of Truth Labs which sold out just a few hours post launch.
👾 Get Ready: Futureverse, a metaverse and AI company, is partnering with Ready Player One's creators to build an interoperable metaverse called the Readyverse, based on the 2011 sci-fi novel by Ernest Cline and 2018 film adaptation. The collaborative team, Readyverse Studios, holds exclusive rights to bring any future IP created by Cline to web3. The Readyverse is planned to launch sometime this year.
Tweet of the Week
🆕 Listen in to the @DCNDailyCrypto podcast where @dominic_w discusses his vision behind #ICP and the ability to run everything directly on-chain ⛓️
— DFINITY (@dfinity) January 3, 2024
Learn about ICP's advantages over traditional tech👇https://t.co/VMr2vxdt11
Meme Time
A Matter of Opinion
As we finish up the first week of the new year, we can't help but deeply contemplate about the future of crypto regulation in the U.S.; the United States, despite being a global economic power house, has stifled the progress of cryptocurrency service providers with murky legislation, which in turn has deeply crippled the onboarding of new retail users to web3.
There are several events on the horizon that could finally open the doors for American investors. For example, pending legal cases could finally draw hard lines about what American entities are and are not allowed to do: like Coinbase's battle with the SEC, an upcoming potential landmark case about federal agency governance (which could further strip the SEC of significant autonomy), and the conclusion of Ripple Lab's ($XRP) multi-year battle against the Securities and Exchange Commission regarding the definition of what constitutes as a security.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs are expected to be approved sometime this year, which in turn will clear the way for spot Ethereum ETFs, ushering in institutional liquidity and hopefully, an influx of new and eager builders as well. At the very least, allowing TradFi world into crypto in a fully defined, legal manner will lend an air of legitimacy to Web3, especially to crypto-resistant "normies" who see everything in Web3 as lawless scams.
America is also facing a presidential election later this year and crypto will undoubtedly play a big part in the political discourse. Some candidates have already taken a decidedly anti-crypto stance while others, like former President and 2024 hopeful candidate Donald Trump, are no strangers to the Web3 world.
In a landscape riddled with technological misunderstanding and progress-stifling bureaucracy, it remains to be seen how the American crypto scene will shape up to be. However it seems likely that 2024 will finally be the year for legislative clarity.
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*Important Disclaimer: While every effort is made on this website to provide accurate information, any opinions expressed or information disseminated do not necessarily reflect the views of Bitfinity itself. The information provided here is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered as financial advice.
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