Bitcoin (BTC) jumped 8.26% last Friday to hit $20,000 and lead the cryptocurrency market’s recovery after the recent dumps. BTC reached as high as $20,808, a level that hasn’t been seen since August 26, 2022.
Despite fears of an extended crypto winter, investments in blockchain and web3 startups have already topped $14.2 billion this year so far, making it the second highest year for crypto investments so far.
🟣 Ethereum Name Services (ENS) beats Bored Apes on OpenSea’s weekly chart. Approaching the Merge, ENS tops the OpenSea in terms of weekly volume at 2,249 Ether (ETH) at the time of writing, beating out RTFKT Clone X at 1,992 ETH and Bored Ape Yacht Club at 1,777 ETH.
🟣 LG Electronics launches its own NFT Marketplace. The Marketplace is called LG Art Labs, and has been available to all US LG television owners running webOS 5.0 since September 5. Users can access LG Art Labs’ in-home screen, as well as buy, sell, and trade non-fungible tokens (NFTs) from the comfort of their homes.
🟣 A final auction for the Queen Elizabeth II Ethereum NFT Tribute Project. Following the death of England’s Queen Elizabeth II, the Ethereum-based NFT project, QueenE, is holding its final Gen1 artwork action. As of the time of writing, the top bid for the final QueenE Gen1 NFT was 0.5 ETH, or around $825.
🟣 Sony Music files trademark applications for music authenticated by NFTs. The trademark application will cover video recordings, text, artwork and audio featuring live NFT-authenticated music.
🟠 Ethereum’s proof-of-stake Beacon Chain is ready for the Merge. The Bellatrix hard fork has been activated in preparation for the Merge, which is estimated to occur around 9:00 PM ET on September 14.
🟠 Terra’s LUNA showing signs of a potential comeback. On September 10, Terra’s LUNA climbed 166%, following LUNC (Luna Classic)’s similarly steep climb last week. The price skyrocketed to $6.87, marking a peak increase of 247%.
🟠 El Salvador celebrates its Bitcoin anniversary. September 7 marked the first anniversary of El Salvador’s adoption of Bitcoin (BTC) as legal tender. El Salvador was the first country in the world to do so, a move aimed at attracting foreign investment and tourism.
🔵 Axie Infinity officially announced its rebranding to Axie Infinity: Origins. Axie Infinity also announced the official launch of “Season 1,” with a prize pool of 112,000 AXS tokens. 6,750 of the AXS tokens will go to the first-place finisher.
🔵 $30M in stolen crypto from the Axie Infinity Hack was recovered by Chainanalysis. Investigators were able to track the funds that were eventually sent to the centralized exchange. Law enforcement officials could then retrieve the crypto funds after they arrived at exchange.
🔵 Google Cloud partners with Sky Mavis to run a validator node on the Ronin network. Google Cloud will be the 18th validator on Ronin.
🟢 Ford will enter the Metaverse with virtual cars and NFTs. The American car manufacturer is preparing its entry to the metaverse by filing 19 trademark applications across its major brands. According to trademark attorney Mike Kondoudis, Ford’s trademark application covers its car brands Mustang, Bronco, Lincoln, Explorer and F-150 Lightning, among others. It also covers virtual cars, trucks, vans, SUVs and clothing for its brands as well as a proposed online marketplace for NFTs.
🟡 Crypto lender SALT in buyout talks with Bnk To The Future. Two years after settling SEC charges over its $47 million token sale, Secured Automated Lending Technology (SALT) has entered acquisition talks with digital asset and fintech investment platform Bnk To The Future.
🟡 Web3 startup SpiceAI closed a $13.5M seed funding round. The funding round was led by Madrona Venture Capital and other notable VC and angel investors. SpiceAI is a query interface integrated with GitHub that allows developers to access data from protocols such as Sushiswap and Uniswap.
🟡 Whampoa Group to invest $100 million into web3. Singapore’s multi-family office with investments in global tech firms aims to deploy $100 million through a venture capital fund to support and incubate early-stage web3 startups.
🟡 Animoca Brands raised another $110M using a convertible notes sale to institutional investors. The funding round was led by new institutional investors Temasek, Boyu Capital, and GGV Capital. According to data from Crunchbase, Animoca Brands has already raised a total of $775 million worth of funds across several rounds, which sets the company’s value above $5 billion.
🟡 Coinbase hopes to acquire $1.6B USDC from MakerDAO. The proposal indicates that MakerDAO is offering to deposit $1.6B USDC on Coinbase Prime, the exchange’s institutional arm, in return for 1.5% yield.
🟡 Revolving Games raised $13.2 million to develop AAA quality blockchain games, bringing its total funding to $25 million. The latest seed round was led by Pantera Capital, with Animoca Brands, Polygon, Dapper Labs, and Rockstar Games founder Dan Houser among those participating.
🟡 FTX Ventures acquires 30% stake in Skybridge Capital. Part of the proceeds will be used by Skybridge to buy $40 million in cryptocurrency for its balance sheet as a long-term investment.
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