Weekly Summary
- Ethereum’s Buterin Addressed the ‘Largest Remaining Challenge’: Privacy Solutions
- Aptos Rockets 58% on the Week, Leading Layer-1 Token Rally
- Uniswap to Deploy v3 Protocpl on BNB Chain, Leaning into Multi-chain Future
- FinCEN Lists Binance Among Top Counterparties of Bitzlato, with $346M Processed
- Bankrupt BlockFi to Sell $160M in Bitcoin Mining Hardware Loans
Industry Stories
Vitalik Buterin Divulges the ‘Largest Remaining Challenge’ for Ethereum: In his new blog post on Jan. 20, Ethereum co-founder, Vitalkik Buterin acknowledged the need for a privacy solution since the information on public blockchains is public by default. He proposed a “stealth address system”, where a new meta-address is generated for each new transaction with the use of a “spending key” and cryptographic computation. This new method is looking to facilitate on-chain transactions between two parties with anonymity, also adding privacy protections to NFT and ENS domains.
Aptos Rockets 58% on the Week, Leading Layer-1 Token Rally: Layer-1 blockchain Aptos’ native token ($APT) surged by 400%+ this year, gaining as much as 58% in value over the last week alone. The price surge emerged after PancakeSwap, one of the top 10 decentralized exchanges (DEX), held their Jan. 6 community vote to continue its deployment on Aptos. As of Jan 26, overall Aptos TVL is estimated at $58.99 million, according to DefiLlama.
Uniswap Holders Vote to Launch v3 Protocol on BNB Chain: A “temperature check” proposal to deploy the Uniswap v3 protocol to BNB Chain recently received overwhelming support from the Uniswap community on its governance forum. 80% of UNI holders voted in favor of Uniswap to deploy on the BNB Chain, instead of the Ethereum network. Some arguments listed in the forum proposal include BNB Chain’s fast growing user base and license expiration reasons.
Binance Moved $346M for Seized Crypto Exchange Bitzlato: According to Reuters on Jan 24, Binance processed almost $346m in Bitcoin for the Bitzlato, whose founder was arrested by U.S. authorities last week for allegedly running a “money laundering engine” and processing $700m in illicit funds. Binance was the only major crypto exchange among Bitzlato’s top three counterparties, the US Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network noted. Additionally, the world’s largest exchange admits reserve tokens were mistakenly co-mingled with user funds, making the ability to redeem coins difficult to verify, Bloomberg reported the same day.
Bankrupt Lender BlockFi to Sell BTC Mining Machine-Backed Loans: Bankrupt crypto lending firm BlockFi has plans to sell off $160 million in loans backed by around 68,000 Bitcoin mining machines as part of bankruptcy proceedings, Bloomberg reported. Two people “familiar with the matter” claimed that BlockFi started the process of selling off the loans last year. However, some of these loans have already defaulted and some have become undercollateralized given the steep decline in the price of BTC mining equipment. The last day for bidders to submit offers for the loans is Jan 24.
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Matrixport News
Matrixport now supports Optimism ($OP), a lightning-fast Layer 2 blockchain scaling solution for Ethereum. Matrixport users can now deposit, withdraw and transfer OP on our app.
Matrixport’s Markus Thielen, Head of Research, explored in detail investor sentiments and confidence level for the year ahead, together with Philip Gradwell from Chainalysis Inc. and Julio Moreno from CryptoQuant on Jan 19.
Read about the seminar here.
Matrixport’s Toby Norfolk-Thompson, Chief Investment Officer, joins fellow panelists from Google Cloud, BCB Group, Deutsche Bank to explore “Digital Assets & Institutional Adoption” on Jan 20, 2023 at London Blockchain Summit.
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