ICODROPS WEEKLY NEWS DIGEST

Last week's Hot Altcoin events

⚡️🔥BTC and ETH have exceeded the level of $23,000 and $1,650, respectively.

⚡️Genesis filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in New York on Jan. 20. Genesis owes over $3.5B to top 50 creditors. Crypto exchange Gemini, trading giant Cumberland, Mirana, MoonAlpha Finance and VanEck’s New Finance Income Fund are among them. Bybit CEO Ben Zhou was quick to respond to the reports and clarified that Bybit indeed had $150 million exposure to the bankrupt crypto lender via its investment arm Mirana. The reported 151m has abt 120m of collateralized positions which mirana had already liquidated.

⚡️Gemini CEO Cameron Winklevoss threatened to sue Digital Currency Group CEO Barry Silbert over the repayment of a $900 million loan.

⚡️United States prosecutors have seized nearly $700 million worth of assets either owned by collapsed crypto exchange FTX or tied to founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, authorities disclosed in a Friday court filing.

⚡️FTX’s new chief executive, John J. Ray III, said he’s looking into the possibility of reviving the bankrupt crypto exchange.

⚡️Anthony Scaramucci detailed his close relationship with former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, his family, and how he felt after the extent of the FTX collapse came to light during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos. "I had a close relationship with [Sam Bankman-Fried], I considered him a friend," Scaramucci said during Casper Labs’ Blockchain Hub event. "So I have to tell you that the betrayal and fraud—it's bad on a lot of different levels. It certainly hurt me reputationally."

⚡️One in three US Congress members received campaign donations from Sam Bankman-Fried or other FTX executives.

⚡️$90 million in FTX US assets were moved via 'Unauthorized Transfers' after bankruptcy.

⚡️Binance has completed the 22nd quarterly BNB burn. 2.06 million BNB ($618 million) has been burned.

⚡️Binance is now registered as a virtual assets service provider in Poland.

⚡️Binance will allow institutional investors to keep their collateralized crypto used for leveraged positions, off the platform. The exchange will enable investors to post collateral with Binance Custody, which will hold the assets off the internet, in cold storage wallets.

⚡️Tim Draper’s Venture Network launches the “Draper Round Table” for Web3 syndication.

⚡️Digital Currency Group has informed its shareholders the firm is suspending dividends until further notice.

⚡️CoinDesk may pursue a full or partial sale as it seeks capital for its future growth, CEO Kevin Worth said. Charles Hoskinson, co-founder of the Cardano, said that he is considering buying crypto news service CoinDesk to revamp it into a mix of a news and community site. CoinDesk's price is about $200m.

⚡️Crypto lending platform Nexo is suing the Cayman Islands regulator for denying the firm a virtual asset license.

⚡️Nexo agreed to pay $45 million to federal and state agencies after being charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission for failing to register the offer and sale of its retail crypto asset lending product, called the Earn Interest Product.

⚡️Silvergate Capital (SI), the crypto-focussed bank, reported net loss attributable to shareholders of $1 billion for the three months-ended Dec. 31, 2022.

⚡️Crypto infrastructure firm MoonPay acquired web3 creative agency Nightshift for an undisclosed amount. Nightshift will rebrand to Otherlife by MoonPay following the acquisition.

⚡️Google $GOOGL to fire 12,000 employees. Microsoft $MSFT to fire 11,000 employees. ConsenSys has confirmed 11% staff cut.

⚡️Circle hires Deloitte as a new audit firm to validate reserves.

⚡️OKX has published its January Proof of Reserves audit.

⚡️Coinbase will halt operations in Japan.

⚡️The United States Department of Justice announced a “major international cryptocurrency enforcement action” against crypto firm Bitzlato and the arrest of its founder, Anatoly Legkodymov. The Department of Justice, Treasury Department and French law enforcement seized many of Bitzlato’s resources, alleging the firm helped launder $700 million in illicit funds.

⚡️HashKey Capital raises $500 million to build Web3 applications and tools.

⚡️Flashbots, an Ethereum infrastructure service, is in discussions with potential backers about raising up to $50 million at a billion-dollar valuation.

⚡️Su Zhu and Kyle Davies, the founders of collapsed crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC), are hoping to raise $25 million to start a new crypto exchange called GTX.

⚡️BNY Mellon eyes digital asset custody services for Asia.

⚡️EU finance ministers’ group releases statement on political aspects of digital euro. The Eurogroup confirmed its support for digital euro research and noted that some of the design and use elements under consideration would require political decision making.

⚡️The European Parliament’s final vote on the comprehensive Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation has been postponed to April. The delay is “technical” and most likely caused by issues in translating the almost 400-page file into the 24 official languages of the bloc.

⚡️The digital yuan (e-CNY), a digital token issued by the Bank of China, has been used to buy securities for the first time.

⚡️China has enabled smart-contract functionality for its central bank digital currency (CBDC), the digital yuan, through the e-commerce app Meituan.

⚡️The National Australia Bank has created its own stablecoin, the AUDN.

⚡️Crypto companies in France would have to seek authorization from regulators to operate if they are not already registered with the country’s financial regulator by Jan. 1, 2024, under plans adopted by lawmakers at the National Assembly on Tuesday.

⚡️Thailand's Securities and Exchange Commission has issued regulations for crypto custody providers to establish a digital wallet management system to ensure clients safety.

⚡️Seoul government launches city's first public metaverse.

⚡️Block CEO Jack Dorsey funds Bitcoin education program in El Salvador.

⚡️Texas proposed legislation to consider Bitcoin as an authorized investment for the state and give tax incentives to BTC miners.

⚡️The Central African Republic has set up a committee to integrate Sango coin into its national economy. Sango coin is the country’s national crypto and was launched in July 2022.

⚡️Monei gets green light from Bank of Spain to test digital euro EURM.

⚡️Busan, South Korea will establish a decentralized digital commodities exchange. Officials said the platform is scheduled to start operations this year and will support local cultural content via digital assets.

⚡️Fashion brand YVES SAINT LAURENT has filed trademark applications for its name and logo. The applications claim plans for: NFT-backed media, stores featuring virtual goods, virtual makeup, cosmetics, and skincare preparations and more.

⚡️FTX says $415 million of crypto was hacked.

⚡️The person that exploited Solana-based decentralized exchange Raydium has sent $2.7 million in ethereum to now-sanctioned coin mixing protocol Tornado Cash.

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🚀ICOs/IEOs news

💰Web3 social platform builder Plai Labs has raised $32 million in a seed funding round led by crypto investment firm a16z.

💰Mobile games publisher Carry1st has closed a $27 million funding round to advance its publishing and digital content creation platform in Africa. The $27 million funding round was led by Bitkraft Ventures, with additional participation from Andreessen Horowitz, also known as a16z. TTV Capital, Konvoy, Alumni Ventures, Lateral Capital and Kepple Ventures also participated in the funding round.

💰Ethereum Startup Obol Labs has raised $12.5M Series A Funding to make Proof-of-Stake blockchains more secure. Pantera Capital and Archetype co-led the round, with new participation from BlockTower, Nascent, Placeholder, Spartan, and IEX, and follow-on investment from Coinbase Ventures and Ethereal Ventures.

💰Web3 gaming platform Intella X raised $12 million in private funding ahead of an upcoming launch on Polygon. Polygon, Animoca Brands, Magic Eden, Planetarium, Big Brain Holdings, Crit Ventures, JoyCity, Pearl Abyss, XL Games, Wemix and Global Coin Research were among the investors.

💰Gateway, a web3 credential protocol, raised $4.2 million in a seed funding round. Crypto-focused venture capital firm Reciprocal Ventures led the round, with 6th Man Ventures, Spartan Group, Figment and others participating. Angel investors, including Polygon's Sandeep Nailwal and Messari's Ryan Selkis, also backed the round.

🤝Filecoin Foundation has partnered with Lockheed Martin to deploy a decentralized file system in space.

📌Synergy Land, a web3 action role-playing game currently in development, announced it will move from the Solana blockchain to Polygon.

📌Aave team member 0x4Graham tweeted that Aave V3 could launch this week. The v3 upgrade introduces cross-chain asset functions, community contribution tools, gas optimization model that is expected to reduce costs by 20-25 percent, efficient mode and other upgrades.

📌MultiversX has launched its Web3 culture hub xSpotlight.

📌Frontier Wallet adds support for MultiversX NFTs.

📌MultiverseX has announced that the MVP of the protocol CoinDrip has already been made available on the MultiversX Devnet, with the mainnet launch scheduled for Q1 2023. CoinDrip offers an intuitive solution that enables recurring payments, token vesting and subscriptions, using the MultiversX Smart Contracts Framework.

📌1inch has introduced the 1inch Hardware Wallet.

📌Robinhood has launched the Robinhood Wallet.

📌Cross-chain bridge protocol Stargate has integrated with the Layer 2 Ethereum scaling solution Metis.

📌Astroport launches its beta on the Injective testnet, bringing an advanced AMM to the Injective universe. Astroport is a sophisticated AMM protocol that allows any user to swap crypto assets using multiple pool types.

📈Binance has listed Rocket Pool (RPL) in the Innovation Zone.

📈Binance will delist Beam (BEAM) at 2023-01-26 09:00 UTC.

📈Binance Futures has launched BUSD-margined AGIX perpetual contracts with up to 15x leverage.

📈Binance Futures has launched USDⓈ-M FXS perpetual contracts with up to 20x leverage.

📈Binance Futures will launch USDⓈ-M HOOK perpetual contracts on 2023-01-23 03:00 UTC with up to 20x leverage.

📈Coinbase and Coinbase Pro have listed Kava (KAVA).

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