When you pay attention to boredom it gets unbelievably interesting! (weekly crypto updates)

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What happened in crypto in the past week? Kucoin seems to be slightly better than Binance, at least in my country. BTC and ETH are on everyone's conversation now, with the ETF launching lately. USDT is doing some sketchy moves again. CZ started his 4 months in prison. What else? Read below:

• Bitcoin: BTC went above $71K for just a short moment. Memecoins like ORDI, PUPS and WZRD went up 17%, 200% and 135%. Wisconsin's Pension Fund added $164M worth of spot BTC ETF exposure to its books. Australia's first spot BTC ETF goes live. The US spot BTC ETFs maintained their 15-day inflow streak. Starkware is trying to unlock Bitcoin's smart potential, working on a BTC scaling solution. Riot Platforms' stock takes a hit as a short seller slams the miner's dysfunctional model of endless equity issuances to fund the operational costs. Standard Chartered predicted one BTC will be worth more than $150K by the end of the year. Macroeconomic factors seem to be in favour of Bitcoin. Arthur Hayes is also bullish on his own predictions.

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• Ethereum: Over $3B in ETH were withdrawn from the centralized exchanges setting the stage for an epic supply squeeze in the following months. While BTC ETFs received $149M in fresh capital, ETH ETFs also got $33.5M from investors. Things are looking much better now. But major spot ETF fillings from BlackRock and Fidelity are facing delays. Base Blockchain had a 465% spike in TVL in the last 90 days, performing much better than Arbitrum and Optimism. Arbitrum Foundation greenlit a $215M fund for game projects. There are also jokers like VanEck predicting ETH will reach $22K by 2030.

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• Altcoins and stablecoins: GameStop memecoin on Solana started to surge after the Roaring Kitty guy said he got a $181.4M stake in GME. Now E-Trade is thinking of de-platforming him (banning him) over alleged market manipulation concerns. Iggy's memecoin, MOTHER, went up to a $0.09 ATH, and it has a real-world utility now, for purchases like mobile phones and monthly cellular plans. Notcoin had a 320% surge in just a few days. BNB hit an ATH of $711, as it hit yet another milestone, 200M users worldwide. Fun stat, 455K new tokens were launched on Solana in May. Io.net token launch was a bit chaotic, after the project CEO announced his exit 48 hours before its launch. AI tokens seem to be stuck, despite Apple's AI reveal. Tether (USDT) made a major investment in the Bitcoin miner Bitdeer. Stablecoin market cap hits yearly high despite declining volumes. USDT dominated the market with a 77% market share. Paxos launched a yield-bearing stablecoin called USDL, paying a 5% yield to its holders.
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• NFTs and blockchain games: I did find some funny game called Chain of Legends and if you go here to do their quest, you get 1 free land, 1 free barracks and 2-3 troups too for a better start. What a number! On Splinterlands, the fourth round of Conflicts airdrop finished, with the second Legendary summoner, and the new reward system seems to be alright, as you get Glint tokens for every match you win and double of it at the end of the season. You can use Glint tokens to buy specific cards, Merits, potions and even 3 different titles. You may also want to check Holozing - a soon-to-be-launched Pokemon-like game on the Hive blockchain.

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• Good news: The US Navy is seeking private sector partners for blockchain-based cybersecurity tech. Kucoin has a brilliant referral program, if you are good at this kind of activity. Coinbase introduced its new Smart Wallet, the exchange's new self-custody solution designed to make onboarding the next billion users easy and smooth. We are discussing Face ID biometrics and passkey logins to move past seed phrases. They also donated $25M to the pro-crypto super Political Action Committee Fairshake. Crypto custody firm Fireblocks partnered with Coinbase to enhance crypto security for global traders. Ton ecosystem launched Telegram Stars, a new in-app designed to accept payments on both Android and IOS, without worrying about the 30% app tax demanded by Apple and Google. BitPanda and Deutsche Bank teamed up for real-time crypto payments. Robinhood acquired Bitstamp for $200M in an all-cash deal. Kraken is exploring a $100M funding round before a potential IPO. Franklin Templeton is planning for a new crypto fund beyond BTC and ETH. HSBC became the first foreign bank to offer China's Digital Yuan to businesses.

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• Bad news: The Japanese exchange DMM Bitcoin was hacked, losing over 4500 BTC, worth $208M. Linea Network's Velocore was also hacked losing $2.6M in ETH. There is something fishy with the mailing list vendor hack servicing multiple crypto companies, so, once more, check the airdrop emails that you got really carefully, as they may be hacking attempts, aiming to get your hard-earned crypto. Also, we had Vitalik feeling that this whole celebrity memecoin strand is meaningless and simply aiming to cash in on star power and hype cycles. What do you think? The Binance founder CZ begins his four-month prison sentence.

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• Joke of the week: The circus is on in the United States after Biden vetoed the Congress' bipartisan effort to stop the SEC's controversial guidelines SAB 121. Biden said the veto was necessary to protect the SEC's broader authorities over accounting practices. SAB 121 mandates that institutions holding crypto assets must record these holdings as liabilities on their balance sheets. Many are disappointed with this White House decision. According to Mark Cuban, the crypto issues may decide the next US president. The SEC announced the closure of the Salt Lake City office after they lost a crypto-related fraud lawsuit against DEBT Box, as they were sanctioned for gross abuse of power.
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All the best,

George

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Why not...

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...have fun and win rewards on my favourite blockchain games (Splinterlands- Hearthstone-like card game) (Mobox - GamiFI NFT platform) (Upland - real-life virtual land) (Holozing - Pokemon-like game)and (Rising Star - Music creators game).

...Get ETH while writing on the Publish0x blog, using the Presearch search engine to maximize your income with PRE tokens. Use Torum instead of Twitter. I am also writing for crypto on Read.cash and Hive.

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