10 May 2024

Macro/TradFi

  • The European Securities and Markets Authority (“ESMA”) is reviewing whether to allow crypto into the region's €12 trillion UCITS investment product market.

  • The US House of Representatives has approved a resolution to overturn a SEC bulletin that establishes cryptocurrency accounting guidance for firms that custody crypto.

  • A group of financial institutions, including J.P. Morgan, Citi, Mastercard, and Visa, have initiated a proof-of-concept for a Regulated Settlement Network (RSN). The project will explore the feasibility of shared ledger technology to settle tokenized assets.

  • Grayscale has withdrawn its application for an Ethereum futures ETF.

Crypto

L1/L2:

  • The Bitcoin network has achieved a significant milestone, processing its billionth transaction this week. 

  • BNB Chain has announced 4 hard forks for opBNB, which will result in gas cost on opBNB to be up to 10 times lower.

  • The Starknet Foundation has announced a US$5M grant program to support emerging projects on Starknet.

  • Neel Somani, founder of the Eclipse L2, has stepped back from the project following allegations of sexual misconduct, which he has denied.

DeFi:

  • Liquid restaking protocol Puffer Finance has launched its mainnet on May 8.

  • Total transaction volume of Arbitrum on Uniswap has surpassed US$150B, making it the first Layer 2 to pass the threshold.

Stablecoins:

  • According to a report by Bloomberg, Visa and data platform Allium Labs discovered that less than 10% of stablecoin transaction volumes are authentic or originate from actual individuals. Nonetheless, the analysis found a steady growth of monthly active stablecoin users, with 27.5M monthly active users across all chains.

Other:

  • Metamask has launched an optional new feature, called Smart Transactions, that aims to bring native MEV protection, pre-simulation, and smarter gas settings to users.

  • Digital bank Revolut, has developed a crypto exchange Revolut X which is now available to professional cryptocurrency traders.

  • A group of Ethereum developers, including Vitalik Buterin, has proposed a new transaction type to enhance Externally Owned Accounts (“EOAs”). EIP-7702 suggests a new transaction type that allows EOAs to temporarily act as smart contract wallets during a transaction.

  • Fantasy.top and pump.fun have broken into the top 10 projects this week in terms of 24H fees generated based on data from DeFi Llama.

  • Trading platform Robinhood has received a Wells Notice from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Separately, Robinhood also reported its first quarter results this week - 1Q crypto trading volume was US$36B, up 224% year-on-year.

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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.

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