It's time for Monday industry catch-up 📰

Crypto & Blockchain Update: September 9-15

📈Market Highlights
- Bitcoin bounced back last week with a 6% rise, while $ETH is down 1% over 7 days
- Crypto activity in 2024 surpasses 2021 peak, largely fuelled by Bitcoin ETFs
- Last 7 day top 3 altcoins rising were CKB (95.7%), POPCAT (26.3%) and TAO (19.9%); while 3 biggest decliners were HNT (-10.7%), STRK (-8.7%), GALA (-7.6%) according to CoinMarketCap
- MicroStrategy buys 18,300 $BTC, now holds over $14B worth of Bitcoin
- Japan’s MetaPlanet purchases $2M worth of $BTC more, totaling $26M
- Market analysts predict crypto and commodities could enter a rally, with incoming rise in global liquidity to catalyze the next crypto bull

🎮Blockchain Tech & Gaming
- L1 blockchain Nomic will start supporting Ethereum on its decentralized $BTC custody engine; with nBC used in place of WBTC
- Ethereum Foundation’s researcher D. Ryan leaves after 7 years
- Sonic blockchain reaches transaction finality of 720 milliseconds during testnet
- Telegram game Catizen’s community upset after airdrop tokenomic announcement, with only 15% of CATI airdropped to players in Season 1
- TON developers warned that Hamster Kombat and Catizen token launches may disrupt the network
- Coinbase launched cbBTC token, a wrapped version of Bitcoin backed 1:1 with $BTC held by Coinbase
- CARV launched a $50 million accelerator, with first project being rising Telegram game Banana
- Ethereum gaming network Ronin launched Waypoint, its universal account and wallet
- PancakeSwap launched a BNB price prediction Telegram bot
- Telegram game Rocky Rabbit launched a battle mode ahead of RBTC token airdrop
- Saga, L1 blockchain with gaming focus, launched a gas-free infrastructure

📃Regulatory Updates
- England’s High Court of Justice says Tether’s USDT stablecoin is considered property
- Brazil’s top prosecutor backs Supreme Court’s ban on X as it doesn’t constitute a violation of Brazilian speech laws
- Hong Kong is considering new licensing regulations for OTC crypto trading services, as they’re tightening oversight
- Former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison asks for no prison sentence in FTX case, citing extensive cooperation with the government
- Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi wants to transform EU crypto regulations with a unified regulator, like the U.S. SEC

💰Investments & Partnerships
- CleanSpark acquired 7 mining sites in Tennessee, boosting hashrate by 22%
- Mining company Bitfarms entered into a hosting agreement with Stronghold Digital Mining to bring additional 2.2 exahashes per second (EH/s) of computing power online during Oct 2024
- A16Z announces plans for 2nd cohort of 21 startups in its accelerator program, with $500k backing for each
- Nytro Labs receives $8M backing for web3 gaming studio
- Lyvely, a social-fi platform announces new investors including M2 and Cypher Capital

🛡️Cybersecurity
- FBI released a report that states Americans lost $5.6B to crypto fraud in 2023, a 45% increase from previous year
- Bitcoin ETFs may be the next target for North Korean hackers, according to Michael Pearl
- Indodax crypto exchange hit by exploit resulting in $22M loss
- Crypto millionaire Fickel loses $43M by betting on Ether’s price against Bitcoin
- Circle blacklists addresses tied to Lazarus Group, now all 4 stablecoin issuers (Paxos, Tether, Techteryx, Circle) have done so
- Crypto scammers utilized deep fakes of Tim Cook, Apple CEO, during Apple’s recent livestream event

🗞️Miscellaneous
- Circle announces moving HQ to New York’s WTC ahead of IPO
- Trump to launch World Liberty Financial crypto platform on September 16th, now added Scroll as advisor
- Crypto platform Friendtech token declines 26% in 24h after admin and ownership transfer
- Brazilian bank Nubank, backed by Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway, suspends native crypto token Nucoin trading after a 97% price drop over last year; users can convert NUC to $BTC or USDC by Dec 9th
- India ranks first in Chainanalysis 2024 Global Crypto Adoption Index, despite local ban on offshore crypto exchanges
- Asset manager Bernstein predicts $BTC could hit $90k by end of the year if Trump wins election

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Have a successful new week ahead, everyone!🤝