9 June 2023
Happy Friday! The Weekly Market Highlights is an initiative from the Binance Research team to round up the week, summarizing key market events and views from the team.
🔎 Macro / TradFi
The US CFTC has approved Cboe Digital to offer clearing services for leveraged derivatives contracts on crypto assets.
Japanese banking giant, MUFG, has announced plans to deploy and distribute bank-backed stablecoins in a partnership with Datachain and Toki (a cross-chain bridge).
🔎 Crypto
L1/L2:
Optimism’s Bedrock upgrade was successfully completed. The upgrade helps to reduce deposit confirmation times and to lower gas fees by up to 40%, among other things.
Enjin has released the Enjin Blockchain, a chain dedicated to NFTs. The chain will integrate NFT transactions directly on-chain, rather than relying on smart contracts.
Swiss crypto tokenization platform, Taurus, has announced an integration with Polygon. The partnership will allow their clients (many of which are global banks) to tokenize all sorts of traditional financial assets.
DeFi:
Swift, the interbank messaging platform, and Chainlnk are set to collaborate to connect over a dozen major financial institutions across multiple blockchain networks.
Stablecoins:
Tether has announced plans to invest in El Salvador’s US$1B renewable energy initiative, dubbed Volcano Energy. The energy will be used to power Bitcoin mining farms across the country.
NFTs:
Illuvium has partnered with GameStop to debut a 20,000 NFT collection called “Illuvitars”
Binance NFT Marketplace has integrated Ordinals (Bitcoin NFTs)
Louis Vuitton has announced a limited edition NFT collection, with each “VIA Treasure Trunk” priced at US$41,693. Users will get a physical replica and access to exclusive products and experiences. The NFTs are soulbound and thus cannot be resold.
Web3 gaming startup, Fractal, has announced FStudio, a three-part product that will enable game devs to more easily add crypto integrations into games without coding.
Others:
Life insurance company, Meanwhile Insurance Bitcoin, has raised US$19M to develop an AI-aided Bitcoin-denominated insurance policy.
Ethereum Name Service (“ENS”) is set to support a new domain called “.box”. Uniquely, these domains can be used for both crypto and web2 internet services such as e-mail.
Apple unveiled their hotly anticipated AR / VR headset, the Apple Vision Pro. It will launch in early 2024 starting at US$3,499.
Hivemind Capital Partners has announced an open-ended Liquid Opportunity Fund with a target size of US$300M. The fund will focus on secondary market crypto trading.
Upcoming zkEVM builder, Taiko Labs, has announced US$22M raised across two rounds.
Decentralized social media platform, Lens Protocol, has raised US$15M.
Web3 gaming studio Argus has raised US$10M. They also announced a blockchain gaming software developer kit (“SDK”) to help devs build their own web3 games.
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About Binance Research: Binance Research is the research arm of Binance, the world's leading cryptocurrency exchange. The team is committed to delivering objective, independent, and comprehensive analysis and aims to be the thought leader in the crypto space. Our analysts publish insightful thought pieces regularly on topics related but not limited to, the crypto ecosystem, blockchain technologies, and the latest market themes.
General Disclosure: This material is prepared by Binance Research and is not intended to be relied upon as a forecast or investment advice, and is not a recommendation, offer or solicitation to buy or sell any securities, cryptocurrencies or to adopt any investment strategy. The use of terminology and the views expressed are intended to promote understanding and the responsible development of the sector and should not be interpreted as definitive legal views or those of Binance. The opinions expressed are as of the date shown above and are the opinions of the writer, they may change as subsequent conditions vary. The information and opinions contained in this material are derived from proprietary and non-proprietary sources deemed by Binance Research to be reliable, are not necessarily all-inclusive and are not guaranteed as to accuracy. As such, no warranty of accuracy or reliability is given and no responsibility arising in any other way for errors and omissions (including responsibility to any person by reason of negligence) is accepted by Binance. This material may contain ’forward looking’ information that is not purely historical in nature. Such information may include, among other things, projections and forecasts. There is no guarantee that any forecasts made will come to pass. Reliance upon information in this material is at the sole discretion of the reader. This material is intended for information purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or an offer or solicitation to purchase or sell in any securities, cryptocurrencies or any investment strategy nor shall any securities or cryptocurrency be offered or sold to any person in any jurisdiction in which an offer, solicitation, purchase or sale would be unlawful under the laws of such jurisdiction. Investment involves risks.
