Problems are the price of progress. Don't bring me anything but trouble. Good news make me weak!(weekly crypto updates)

So, for this week, we could see some action. Some FUD creators and the community is divided by being pro and against CZ and his Binance. This is a scary perspective, as Binance holds probably 80% of the centralized crypto. Who has something to win if Binance falls? Why are only a handful of Twitter accounts and people working against them? This seems like a concentrated campaign against crypto in general, BNB and BTC in particular, to keep them down. There may be more significant players in the game, trying to achieve more (read: buy your crypto) before everything goes up again. At least this is how I see it. And funny enough, the campaign against Kucoin a few weeks ago seems like a test before the one against Binance, to test the big guns, to say it nicely. What else happened this week? Read below:

• Bitcoin: Bitcoin outflows from the centralized exchanges recorded the largest negative value, with an outflow of $1.6B (91.363 BTC), mostly linked to Binance. Overall is not all bad, with a 4.99% increase in Bitcoin futures contracts traded, and a 27.6% of Ethereum futures contracts traded in November, as opposed to October. The BTC and ETH ETFs to be listed on the Hong Kong stocks received $54M and $20M in initial investments.
• Ethereum: All ETH core devs indicated that the Shanghai hard fork will be scheduled for March 2023, and it will support Beacon Chain withdrawals, allowing stackers to redeem the ETH locked in the original staking contract, and the rewards accrued since the launch. Did you hear about Morpho? It is an Ethereum-based lending pool optimizer that provides better rates for lenders and borrowers by matching them peer2peer instead of peer2pool. Just a gimmick? You tell me. Metamask integrates Paypal to allow its users to buy ETH, directly from the wallet, first in the US. Ethereum's compliance concerns seem to be exaggerated. The OFAC-compliant blocks started to decrease after peaking in late November, as the community is prioritizing neutrality over profits (would we expect this?). There is a new Coinbase tool allowing users to recover ERC-20 tokens previously thought forever stranded (no link yet, but it will be available soon, excepting Japan and Coibase Prime). There is a 5% fee for recovered amounts over 100$.
• Altcoins: 1Inch implemented a Staking Pod mechanic for their token, and you will receive st1INCH and boosted governance depending on your lock period, 50% of protocol revenue, and the ability to deploy permissionless delegation pods. Ankr team began to airdrop ankrBNB to all the holders who held assets at the time of the malicious aBNBc mint, and they will receive BNB at the end of the current unbonding period. Cronos team pre-released Cronos v.1.0 with prioritized mempool, custom tx indexer, memo field, and IBC incentivization. Tron-backed USDD loses its peg for the second time this year, slipping to 0.98, with Tron DAO claiming to have USDD collateralized up to 200%, $2 for each $1 of crypto. But is this true? We do not know. CELO, DASH, and APE went up this week, for no visible reason. Coinbase launched zero-fee trading if you swap USDT into USDC. Now all that we need is some FUD about Tether. Wanna bet? Wow, one day later, some rumors started about Tether secured loans, so they stated that it will eventually stop lending out funds from their reserves. Didn't take long, just 24 hours.
• Blockchain games and NFTs: On Splinterlands we had the initial Land NFT feature introduced, where you can claim your deeds, the next upgrade being the ability to prospect and see what kind of land you got, also, now you can stake your Runi and use it in the fight (I am pleased with it, a solid card, I must say). Splinterlands are also sunsetting their Tron and Steem bridges, if you have any DEC or packs to import from these two blockchains, you may need to do it now. They do have some good holiday deals, with bonus free potions, extra bonus card packs, free Runi's, and more. On top of that, a common card - Arkemis the Bear, was airdropped for every booster pack you bought in the last 30 days. Magic Eden, a Solana leading marketplace for NFTs, is rolling out a loyalty program, with Magic points rewarded for every SOL traded. Gods unchained is organizing a nice reward scheme between 15.12.2022 and 11.01.2023, where you get extra tokens for playing 2,6,10 and 15 ranked games on each consecutive week. Good luck. Donald Trump launched an NFT collection, with real-benefits attacked (gala dinner with Trump and meet-and-greet session too) costing $99 on Polygon, and it is completely sold out now.
• Good news: Starbucks was surprised by the unprecedented interest in their Odyssey Polygon NFTs. The demand for computing power in the coming decade will exceed by far the supply offered by centralized cloud providers, so decentralized solutions like Akash and Render Network will have high demand, did you check them? 13% of Americans have held crypto at some point in their lives, and this increased by 3% compared to 2020. UN to send USDC to displaced Ukrainians, using a blockchain-based aid program, and Vibrant digital wallets running on the Stellar network. Paxful CEO said that their exchange will send a weekly email asking its users to not keep their savings on any crypto exchange. Ark Invest bought another $11.9M of Coinbase stock.
• Bad news: Trading the shares of the London-based crypto mining firm Argo Blockchain was suspended in the UK and UK Friday, and no reason was disclosed. Another one bites the dust? Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested, in the end, by the Bahamian authorities. Everyone expects the US to request the Bahamas to extradite him. The SEC charged SBF with orchestrating a scheme to defraud equity investors, comingled user funds at Alameda to make undisclosed venture investments, lavish real estate purchases, and large political donations. He has been denied a $250K bail, deemed to be a flight risk. Right! Canada is banning margin and crypto-leveraged trading, asking firms to keep clients' assets separately from their proprietary business. We used to think that this is common sense until FTX contradicted and challenged all our beliefs. By the way, the Creditos's committee for FTX was revealed yesterday. Crypto-lender Amber raised $300M amid reports of unpaid loads and delayed severance packages. Is this the next one to go down? The Block CEO resigned after it was found out that FTX loaned $43M, out of which $16M was used to buy real estate in the Bahamas (red flag?). Do Kwon, the Luna guy could have moved to Serbia, as the Korean Ministry of Justice asked the Serbian government to help locate him. He is chased by Interpol right now too. Crypto-friendly bank Silvergate shares dropped to a two-year low after their connection with FTX was revealed. Two known Ponzi schemes, IcomTeck and Forcount, and by that I mean 9 individuals related to both, had filed charges against by the US Dept of Justice.
• Joke of the week: This time Binance was under the microscope. Binance was criticized for showing only parts of its assets and liabilities, and so were Crypto.com and Kucoin. There are people that consider this not to be an audit. And so another week full of FUD began. They committed to transparency, but they still have to disclose a bit more to reassure the investors. Binance reopened USDC withdrawals and recorded over $3B in outflows in just 24 hours after they supposedly showed only a part of their assets and liabilities. CZ, Binance CEO, called this a good stress test. Kevin OLeary claimed that Binance caused the collapse of FTX, and many Americans believed it, yet nobody asked how much he lost on FTX, as Mr. Wonderful was heavily invested in FTX.

All the best, George

Why not...

...have fun and win rewards on my favorite blockchain games (Splinterlands - A hearthstone-like card game) (Mobox - GamiFI NFT platform) and (Rising Star - Music creators game).

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