Monday Crypto Industry Update: Feb 17-23📰

📊Market Highlights

- Bitcoin is down 0.36% over the last 7 days, currently at $95,790
- Ethereum is sitting at $2,720 with a 1.46% increase last week
- Last week’s top 3 gainers were S (+60%), MKR (+45%), and SEI (+20%), while the top 3 losers were RAY (-37%), $HYPE (-16%), and IMX (-15%)
- The crypto market’s Fear & Greed Index is at 40 Neutral today
- Crypto market capitalization at $3.15 trillion, down 1.44% since yesterday
- Stablecoins market capitalization is up 0.46% in the last 7 days, currently at $226 billion, with USDT dominance at 63%
- NFT sales volume decreased by 36% over the previous 7 days while total sales increased by 19% with 304,705 sales
- Bitcoin market cap dominance is currently at 60.4%, followed by Ethereum at 10.4% and other cryptocurrencies at 29.2%

🌐Blockchain Tech & Gaming

- Blockchain gaming company Illuvium cut its workforce by 40% in the last 2 weeks to “go super lean and speed up development”
- Hyperliquid launched HyperEVM on its layer-1 blockchain along with a bug bounty program offering up to $1 million
- Ethereum’s Pectra Upgrade to improve staking and offer auto-compounding mechanism
- Polkadot Blockchain Academy (PBA) to host an educational course for policymakers in Switzerland in April, with UK lawmakers attending
- Crypto esports platform Community Gaming launched its CGX token on Ronin network along with its Forkast prediction markets platform

📃Regulatory Updates

- SEC dropped its investigation into NFT platform OpenSea
- European Central Bank to double down on wholesale CBDC aka digital euro platform development to settle payments between institutions
- SEC approved an application from Figure Markets to launch its yield-bearing US dollar-pegged stablecoin YLDS
- Standard Chartered, Animoca Brands, and Hong Kong Telecommunications (HKT) have partnered to issue a Hong Kong dollar-backed stablecoin
- Norway charges 4 men in a $87 million Ponzi scheme crypto investment fraud

💰Investments & Partnerships

- Digital asset investment firm Canary Capital launched a new Axelar Trust private investment fund, available to institutional and accredited investors
- Onchain security platform Blockaid raised $50M in Series B funding led by Ribbit Capital

🛡️Crypto Security

- ByBit exchange hacked, $1.4B worth of ETH-related tokens lost; potentially largest crypto heist of all time
- According to CertiK chief security officer, crypto scammers are targeting AI trading bots by launching a fake token with hidden backdoors that seem safe to AI trading bots; then promote it in AI communities and rug pull it
- ZachXBT identified Lazarus Group behind the ByBit hack; winning Arkham bounty
- Cardex, a card trading game on Ethereum L2 network Abstract, mishandled its private keys and led to $500k worth of $ETH loss for users’ wallets

🗞️Miscellaneous

- Solana network experienced a 40% decline in active addresses in February compared to November 2024, while SOL price decreased 29% last 30 days
- Pi Network token PI crashed 65% after its mainnet Open Network launch
- Litecoin daily transaction volume increased by more than 200% in 5 months, with LTC price up 2x since November
- Crypto app downloads in UAE jumped from 6.2 million in 2023 to 15 million in 2024, a 41% increase
- Strategy announced $2 billion in senior convertible notes to buy more Bitcoin
- Deutsche Börse CEO believes that the European Union needs a permanent CBDC to strengthen the region’s financial autonomy

***
Wishing a happy Independence Day to our home country, Estonia! 🇪🇪