Welcome to crypto-news Crypto, previously generally known as Chain Response.
To get a roundup of crypto-news’s greatest and most essential crypto tales delivered to your inbox each Thursday at 12 p.m. PT, subscribe right here.
Whats up and welcome again to the third version of the brand new and improved crypto-news Crypto publication. As beforehand talked about, alongside our commonly scheduled information bits, I’ll be including some contemporary recurring segments and options — so should you like what you see (or don’t), let me know at jacquelyn@techcrunch.com.
Comfortable February, buddies! We’ve made it via one-twelfth of the 12 months; that wasn’t so laborious was it? Solely must do it 11 extra instances to make it to 2025.
As January got here to an finish, hackers acquired busy and stole so much of XRP tokens, Polygon did layoffs, new studies present demand for AI and blockchain to work collectively, Ethereum developer curiosity hit new highs final 12 months and Tether reported report revenue from the fourth quarter of 2023. Extra particulars beneath.
This week in web3
- Polygon Labs lays off 60 staff, about 19% of its employees, CEO says
- AI and blockchains may want each other to evolve, in keeping with new report (TC+)
- Hackers steal $112 million of XRP Ripple cryptocurrency
- Ethereum developer curiosity hit new all-time highs in 2023 regardless of a bear market (TC+)
- Solana Cellular nonetheless has an extended approach to go till it hits breakeven (TC+)
Crunching numbers
This week the crypto market was fairly bullish as the 2 greatest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, bitcoin and ether, rose 7% and 4.4%, respectively, on the week, in keeping with CoinMarketCap information. The worldwide crypto market cap elevated 5.2% over a seven-day interval to $1.62 trillion.
Individually, Tether reported that within the fourth quarter of 2023 it introduced in a “record-breaking” internet revenue of $2.85 billion, making up 46% of the whole $6.2 billion in internet income final 12 months. Tether is the world’s largest stablecoin by market capitalization and quantity and third largest cryptocurrency behind bitcoin and ethereum. Its complete property (which again its stablecoins) are at $97 billion, as of December 31, 2023. Its liabilities had been about $91.6 billion and it has about $5.4 billion of extra reserves, that are “totally protecting” its excellent $4.8 billion in secured loans, the report added.
Should you’re considering, “these are massive numbers,” you’re proper. See beneath.
Our favourite ‘Crypto Twitter’ put up
Following all of the discuss Tether…
This put up on X by Bitwise Asset Administration’s CIO Matt Hougan speaks for itself. Sorry Goldman Sachs, higher luck subsequent quarter:
Tether made more cash final quarter than Goldman Sachs. Tether: $2.85 billion Goldman: $2.01 billion
The newest pod
For this week’s episode, I interviewed Chris Dixon, normal companion at enterprise capital agency Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).
Chris has been on the agency since 2012 and based and leads a16z’s crypto staff, which invests within the web3 world via 4 mega-funds with over $7 billion below administration. He’s additionally the writer of the lately launched ebook “Learn Write Personal: Constructing the Subsequent Period of the Web.”
Previous to a16z, Chris co-founded two startups, SiteAdvisor and Hunch, acquired by McAfee in 2006 and eBay in 2011, respectively. He additionally attended Columbia College for his bachelor of arts diploma and masters in philosophy and has an MBA from Harvard College.
On this episode, we focus on the brand new ebook, how crypto’s notion has modified and what objective blockchains can finally deliver to the world.
We additionally dove into:
- Large Tech vs. crypto
- Significance of decentralization
- a16z web3 investments
- Blockchain gaming
- Embracing the longer term
Subscribe to Chain Response on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite pod platform to maintain up with the most recent episodes, and please go away us a overview should you like what you hear!
Observe the cash
- Squid raised $4 million in a strategic spherical to assist assist cross-chain interoperability
- Velar raised $3.5 million to construct a perpetual decentralized alternate on Bitcoin
- Web3 gaming startup Yooldo raised $1.5 million, elevating its valuation to $13 million
- Choices-focused protocol Ithaca Finance raised $2.5 million in pre-seed funding
- Portal raised $34 million in a seed spherical to develop its decentralized bitcoin ecosystem
This listing was compiled with info from Messari in addition to crypto-news’s personal reporting.
What else we’re writing
Need to department out from the world of web3? Listed here are some articles on crypto-news that caught our consideration this week.
- Why there’s no clear profitable pricing technique in B2B SaaS (TC+)
- Three San Francisco supervisors obtain threats following YC President Garry Tan’s tweet
- Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional to launch with over 600 apps and video games optimized for the brand new headset
- Senate listening to with 5 social media CEOs was a missed alternative
- Tech layoffs scale to three-quarter excessive (TC+)
