Strengths
- Of the cryptocurrencies tracked by CoinMarketCap, the best performer for the week was Pepe, rising 1,382%.
- Sales of NFTs seem to be climbing from the lowest levels since 2021 after NFT marketplace Blend launched its lending program. The peer-to-peer perpetual platform aims to improve NFT liquidity and allows owners to borrow against their digital assets within seconds, according to Bloomberg.
- Conor Ryder, a research analyst at Kaiko, notes that Bitcoin perpetual futures are increasingly driving the largest digital token's price. He highlights that the Bitcoin perpetuals-to-spot-volume ratio is at its highest in nearly two years, as reported by Bloomberg.
Weaknesses
- Of the cryptocurrencies tracked by CoinMarketCap, the worst performer for the week was BRISE, down 17.78%.
- Dubai authorities reprimanded the co-founder of failed crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital for operating and promoting their new digital-asset exchange, OPNX, without the required local license. The action signals Dubai regulators taking a stricter approach toward crypto, as reported by Bloomberg.
- The South Korean prosecutor leading the investigation into crypto entrepreneur Do Kwon believes extraditing him to his native country would be the best way to bring justice to victims of the TerraUSD cryptocurrency crash, which wiped out around $40 billion from digital currency markets, according to Bloomberg.
Opportunities
- Ark Invest added more Coinbase shares to its stockpile. The U.S. investment management firm added 129,604 Coinbase shares to the Ark Innovation ETF, 23,456 to the Ark Generation Internet ETF and 15,809 shares to its Fintech Innovation ETF, as reported by Bloomberg.
- Bitcoin climbed as renewed fears of instability in the U.S. financial system bolstered the price of cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin rose as much as 4.4% to $28,892. The gains came as U.S. regional banks led a selloff in American equities following the collapse and sale of First Republic Bank, according to Bloomberg.
- Coinbase Global is launching an international derivatives exchange for institutional crypto traders outside the U.S., aiming to diversify its business amid souring relations with American regulators. The new platform will list Bitcoin and Ether perpetual futures starting this week after receiving a license from the Bermuda Monetary Authority, as reported by Bloomberg.
Threats
- Coinbase Inc. chairman and CEO Brian Armstrong, Marc Andreessen and other officers allegedly avoided over $1 billion in losses by using inside information to sell stock within days of the cryptocurrency platform's listing two years ago. The company's board deployed a so-called direct listing instead of an IPO and rapidly sold off $2.9 billion in stock before Coinbase management revealed "material, negative information that destroyed market optimism from the company's first quarterly earnings," according to Bloomberg.
- Former Celsius Network CEO Alex Mashinsky moved to dismiss a New York state lawsuit, having been accused of duping crypto investors by repeatedly making false and misleading statements about the lender's safety, as reported by Bloomberg. Mashinsky was sued for fraud by the New York attorney general in January, who alleged that his actions led to hundreds of thousands of investors losing billions of dollars’ worth of crypto when Celsius collapsed.
- New York Attorney General Letitia James proposed a state law to tighten rules over cryptocurrency companies in her latest move against an industry she claims is suffering from "rampant fraud and dysfunction." Under her proposal, New York would require independent public audits of crypto exchanges and bar people from owning both brokerages and tokens to prevent conflicts of interest, as reported by Bloomberg.
