📢 Your Monday industry catch-up is here! 📰

Crypto & Blockchain Update: July 15-21

Market Highlights
- Bitcoin price above $67,000 as market recovers
- Solana $SOL rises 16% in 7 days leading altcoin gainers, with DOGE up 15% and XRP 12%
- Joe Biden’s withdrawal wiped $67M in crypto long positions within 30 minutes; Kamala Harris memecoin hits ATH
- TON network’s TVL hits $760M
- Bitcoin Spot ETFs set new record inflows of $17B, with BlackRock’s IBIT in the lead
- Polygon to transition from $MATIC to $POL as primary token for gas fees and staking during mainnet upgrade on September 4th

Crypto Gaming
- Pudgy Penguins to be integrated as a character in Pixelverse’s mini-game on Telegram
- Web3 venture capital firm TOP invests in Akedo Games to build Telegram games on TON blockchain
- Meta reported to cut their metaverse division Reality Labs budget by 20% between now and 2026
- Telegram CEO introduces plans for a mini app store and in-app browser with support for web3 pages

Regulatory Updates
- Government of Greece to begin taxing crypto January 2025
- SEC grants preliminary approval of Spot Ether ETFs to BlackRock, Franklin Templeton and VanEck; market debut considered July 23rd
- Hong Kong announces new regulations for fiat-pegged stablecoins
- OKX exits Nigeria, HKX exits Hong Kong market
- Tether accused of market manipulations and antitrust violations
- FTX and CFTC settle on $12.7B after 2 years of negotiations
- South Korea’s strict laws on crypto exchanges come into force

Investments & Partnerships
- Satoshi Protocol raises $2M for Bitcoin issued stablecoin
- Polygon is collaborating with Google Cloud and Accenture to re-design loyalty programs using web3 technology
- SEI Foundation announced $50M ecosystem fund for Japan
- Outlier Ventures and MCD partner for web3 LATAM accelerator
- Truvius crypto investment platform raises $3.2M pre-seed funding from Galaxy Ventures
- Chainbase receives $15M Series A funding from Tencent Investment Group, Matrix Partners, and others
- Grayscale announces decentralized AI fund to endorse investments related to AI in the crypto industry
- African blockchain venture funding down 70% in H1 of 2024 according to CV Labs

Cybersecurity
- Indian cryptocurrency exchange WazirX suffers a $235M hack, launches bounty program to recover stolen funds
- LiFi protocol attacked resulting in $10M worth of cryptocurrencies drained
- Cambodian payments company received $150k from a wallet linked to stolen crypto from Lazarus Group

Miscellaneous
- Craig Wright admits he is not Satoshi, issuing a legal disclaimer on his website
- Blockchain-native companies unaffected by Windows-Crowdstrike outage; blockchain researcher Iwu advises crypto firms to consider alternative endpoint security solutions to mitigate risks
- Global asset manager State Street is looking into blockchain settlement technology, considering creating its own stablecoin and deposit token
- Tether hires Chainanalysis’ former chief economist as its new head of economics to communicate $USDT usage to regulators and stakeholders
- Bitwise CIO predicts Ethereum ETF inflows will push ether prices to ATH above $5,000
- Worldcoin WLD token unlock for early contributors starts July 24th

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Have a great new week ahead, everyone! 🤝