Weekly Summary
- Ethereum Developers to Focus on Withdrawals of Staked Ether in Shanghai Upgrade, Eyeing February Public Testnet
- Metaverse to Possibly Generate $5T in Value by 2030, McKinsey Estimates
- DCG’s Barry Silbert Discusses Genesis in Letter to Shareholders
- U.S. Subpoenas Hedge Funds in Probe of Crypto Exchange Binance
- Hong Kong to Shortlist Crypto Tokens for Retail Trading
Industry Stories
Ethereum Developers Proceed With Shanghai Withdrawals Upgrade: Ethereum developers decided in this year’s first All Core Devs meeting to launch the Shanghai upgrade in March and will focus exclusively on enabling staked Ethereum (stETH) withdrawal, a feature currently missing from the network. The Shanghai Upgrade was expected to introduce EIP 4844 (proto-danksharding) to make Ethereum more scalable through sharding to boost network throughput, along with five other EVM upgrades. A public test network s expected to be built by the end of February.
Metaverse to Possibly Create $5T in Value by 2030: A report from McKinsey & Company estimates that the Metaverse could possibly generate up to $5 trillion in value by 2030, based on its potential in a variety of scenarios of consumer and business applications. To unlock its full potential, four technology enablers are in demand – devices (AR/VR, sensors, haptics, and peripherals); interoperability and open standards; facilitating platforms; and development tools. “The metaverse is simply too big to be ignored,” the report says.
DCG Explains Genesis Loan amid Twitter Feud with Winklevoss: Following his Jan 2 appeal on Twitter, Cameron Winklevoss claimed on Jan 10 that Barry Silbert and Genesis Global Capital, a subsidiary of DCG, had defrauded over 340,000 users of Gemini’s Earn program with a frozen loan of $900m. Silbert wrote on the same day to his shareholders reflecting on the state of the crypto market and the growing FUD around the company. The letter did not address Winklevoss directly, nor his accusations of fraud.
US Hedge Funds Subpoenaed over Binance Dealings: U.S. Federal prosecutors have issued subpoenas to several hedge funds that have dealt with Binance, world’s largest crypto exchange, as part of a years-long probe into possible money-laundering rules violations, the Washington Post reported. The subpoenas do not necessarily mean authorities will bring charges against Binance. On Jan 10, bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital received initial court approval for a proposed $1 billion sale of its assets to Binance.US, amid the national security probe.
Hong Kong Set to Shortlist Crypto Tokens for Retail Trading: Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) plans to allow a subset of tokens for retail investors’ trading, its chief executive said on Jan 11, as it presses on with a new regulatory regime that aims to make the city more friendly to crypto startups, Reuters reported. The new licensing regime will subject crypto finance providers to the same Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing legislation that traditional financial institutions follow.
Product Highlight
Ahead of the Shanghai upgrade, Matrixport has recently supported ETH native staking with an estimated return of 5.5-7% APY.
In light of emerging DeFi attacks, native staking is considered the relatively safe staking option as it obtains on-chain transaction fees and generates income from the rules of the PoS consensus mechanism, without taking additional risks of DeFi contracts.
Partnering with P2P.org, a leading non-custodial node operator, Matrixport provides professionally audited staking solutions with an optimized MEV at a discounted service fee. The node operator takes systematic risk management measures which include additional verification and strengthened key protection, and Matrixport ensures the receiving address stay independent from the operator’s access. Assets will be withdrawable after the Shanghai upgrade completes.
Check out the product and more information on Matrixport App > Staking.
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Matrixport News
Matrixport partners with Chainalysis, a leading blockchain data platform, to enhance our compliance capabilities, support anti-fraud protocols and monitor risk.
“Compliance is a cornerstone of Matrixport’s robust institutional risk management framework. By harnessing Chainalysis’ blockchain intelligence and real-time transaction monitoring capabilities, we are enabled with best-in-class controls to protect and provide our clients with secure, transparent and efficient digital asset services.” Said Matrixport’s Christopher Liu, chief compliance officer.
With Seeing Alpha magazine, Matrixport U.S. CEO Anthony DeMartino weighed in on bitcoin’s movements:
“We still expect (Bitcoin) volatility to decline and remain cautious. Best practices will have to be adhered to as coming up short will reduce access to funding and capital. This new, strict environment will allow for the next stage of growth to occur on a more solid and risk-conscious foundation.”
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