Welcome again to this 16th issue of the Chain Reaction newsletter for the week commencing 7th March 2022.
I am sure if you haven't been living under a rock, you've experienced an emotional roller coaster the past couple of weeks amid the infamous Moscow move towards Ukraine, which opened up the door for what looks could be WW3. Subsequent to this massive political move we have seen some very interesting market reactions.
Russia's bold invasion of Ukraine resulted in sanctions against its economy - spiking a massive sell off that crashed both the Russian stock market and Ruble. Russia's being cut off from the financial world has ironically shown one of Bitcoin's real use cases, subsequently causing it's price to rally .
In the mean time, we had the Ukrainian struggle from the other side of the border, which triggered a worldwide viral sympathy that started a crypto donation pool into an official government wallet. The donations were meant to help with food, shelter, and military supply. Either way, both situations helped the crypto market rebound back to a $2 trillion market cap.
If you would like to dig deeper into why and how is the blockchain relevant to international matters and to get more insights on regulations and Defi knowledge , join us on our Discord: https://discord.com/invite/ZRCTDdsVEF
What you can expect in this newsletter
In the News
Videos of the week
Charts and Data
Around the world of social media
Education
In the news
Aus DeFi Association - Ethereum Lay of the Land - NFTs, DeFi, ENS, DAOs - Does that sound like a word jumble? Then this post will shed some light and help you get perspective on how these things work
CoinDesk - Ruble-Denominated Bitcoin Volumes Surges to 9-Month High - With the Rubles losing its complete value due to the sanctions ,Cryptocurrency became the safe haven to the Russians.
CryptoPotato - Bitcoin Is Now More Valuable Than The Russian Ruble - despite of the previous mixed feeling about Bitcoin in the financial world , this crisis has helped it climb and position itself as the 15th most valuable currency on the global scale.
Financemagnates - Bankprov Partners with Rocket place to support crypto trading platform Finance Magnates: Financial and Business News - While JPMorgan is securing a spot in the Crypto world, other old players like BankProv aren't exactly sitting around either. BankProv has announced their partnership with RoketPlace the Crypto exchange providing them with their (BaaS)
Coin Telegraph - South Korea to invest $187M in national metaverse project - following the proto-metaverse that was announced last November (Metaverse 120 Center), South Korea’s Ministry of ICT, injecting $186M as a support ,of the broad ecosystem in the digital content and corporate growth in the country.
Dailycoin - FC-barcelona-plans-to-enter-the-metaverse-and-launch-nfts/- The famous soccer club FC Barcelona is seeking to engage with their fans through an NFT launch. The club is embracing their future presence in the augmented reality with a serious plan of launching their own Cryptocurrency.
#Regulation and Government
Lugano, Switzerland Will Make Bitcoin Legal Tender - The city of Lugano, Switzerland, will make bitcoin a legal tender and allow citizens to pay for public service fees or taxes in bitcoin . That includes tether the stable coin .
NewsBTC - Blockchain-Powered Game WonderHero Sees Average Player Incomes Reach $1,215 Within Weeks Of Launch - play to earn is changing the gaming industry , despite of its infancy , it opened an economical path for those being effected by the pandemic and bear markets. It showed its potential as a passive income source for gaming enthusiast .
Charts and Data
CoinGecko
Top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap as of March 6th 2022 2:52pm AEST on CoinGecko. dA testing week as bitcoin dropped to $34k USD then rose to $44k but has gone back to where we saw it 7 days ago at $39K.
DeFi Pulse - this week we take a look at Total Value Locked across the various DeFi protocols like Maker, Curve, Aave, Convex Finance and more. It's currently down to $75 billion but was at an all-time high of $110 billion in February this year.
Videos of the week
Coin Bureau - Crypto Market RISKS: Should We Be Worried?! - 26 mins of looking at the Financial Stability Board and its recent report on crypto. It covers the effect of crypto on the global financial system . How traditional financial markets could potentially be affected by crypto markets and more.
ausbiz - Cryptocurrency expands its investor base through ETFs - this video covers mostly bitcoin ETFs , while chatting with Jeff Yew from Monochrome Asset Management ,who are in the race to bring a spot to bitcoin ETF into the local markets . As well as exploring what’s going on in the US , including futures backed ETFs. 18mins
ausbiz - Real estate on the blockchain - In this episode , we are looking at Propy, a real estate firm in the US selling NFTs backed by property. we witnessed an auctioned property ,getting sold for 210 eth and the deed was a smart contract proven by an NFT ownership . that is what might look like ,the future of real-estate ownership without the middleman. 18mins
The Defiant - The Ukraine Airdrop - is this for real? - A quick ran down on the Ukraine airdrop that was announced for those who have donated to its official crypto addresses. Additionally, Ukraine DAO saw a bid of $6.3m for its 1 of 1 NFT. The wallet has received a variety of donations including NFTs as well. Subsequent to this video (on Thursday 3/3) the Ukrainian government announced the cancellation of the airdrop as the war continues. 5mins
Social post of the week
Tai Lopez NFT collection - The NFT space has been getting a huge mainstream attention lately , and with every FOMO moment comes a wave of scams and rug pulls , this week our spacial kind of a scandal is the Tai Lopez NFT collection ,that had to face yet the public court . Tai supplied a total amount of 18,300 NFTS to be sold in return he promoted to his NFTs holder a purchase of a hotel , nightclub and a restaurant , That operate exclusively for the NFT holders . needless to say how stupid this whole promotion was , since he was only able to sell 10% the equivalent of only $1.3 mil. building and running 3 different hospitality businesses based of that amount makes no sense economically. Twitter user 0xBeans.eth has a good take on it here: https://twitter.com/0x_Beans/status/1499910969081806849
Education
Monochrome Asset Management - Digital Asset Regulation in Australia: Where to from here? - In this piece from Monochrome we see details on how regulators classify digital assets, their concerns and how Australia might address these risks. Timely given the current talks going on at Treasury.
This week's newsletter edited by NORAL H BENMELHA
If you're interested in contributing to these newsletters in future - please join us on Discord or reach out to us on info@defi.org.au