Top10 News

1. The Fed announced a rate hike of 25 bps as scheduled link

The statement has repeatedly emphasized that it will adhere to the ultimate goal of 2% inflation. Markets expect to raise interest rates again in March and May. Crypto rose briefly after the FOMC announcement.

2. Damus’ weekly summary

a. Nostr, a decentralized social network, has launched an app called Damus link

Nostr, a decentralized social network that Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey previously donated BTC to, has launched an app called Damus on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. Jack also changed his twitter bio to #bitcoin #nostr, along with his Damus address.

b. Damus saw more than 40,000 new accounts created on its first day of operation link

The Nostr-based Damus social network saw more than 40,000 new accounts created on its first day of operation. New accounts that generate public and private keys will follow the Damus official account. Currently, the account has more than 40,000 followers and is still growing.

c. Damus has been removed from the App Store in mainland China link

On February 3, Damus, a decentralized social networking application based on the Nostr protocol, has been removed from the App Store in mainland China. Damus was launched on the App Store on February 1, and quickly entered the top ten free social apps in the App Store in the US.

3. WeChat, Alipay, Binance and others participate in HKMA consultation on cryptocurrency and stablecoin regulation link

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority proposes to bring certain activities related to crypto stablecoins into regulation, including the need to apply for a license; not to accept algorithmic stablecoins; not to engage in lending business. China’s largest Internet company Alibaba Tencent and the world’s largest exchange Binance, as well as visa mastercard and Hong Kong’s largest metaverse company Animoca, have participated in the Hong Kong government’s consultation on cryptocurrency and stablecoin regulation.

4. Amazon Web Services is looking for senior GTM specialist, Web3 link

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is looking for individuals in the Web3 Go-To-Market team that is responsible for growing adoption of Web3 workloads, which needs an in-depth understanding of blockchain-based architectures at the intersection of Web3 and Games.

5. Circle released the USDC audit report for December 2022 link

Circle released the USDC audit report for December 2022, 44,553,543,212 USDC is currently backed by $44,693,963,701 U.S. dollars held in custody accounts, including 14 different U.S. treasury bills valued at over $23.5 billion.

6. MetaMask announced an update in the privacy and security settings link

MetaMask announced a new function that users can click on “Set advanced privacy settings” to change their RPC providers and toggle features that send requests to third party services that help with phishing detection and identifying incoming transactions, among others.

7. Binance aims to provide new solution for Proof of Reserves in 2023 link

The Binance product team stated that the plan for 2023 is multiple product releases around Binance’s Proof of Reserves, such as zk-STARK-based solutions; and achieve 1 billion verified Binance users by streamlining the KYC process even more. CZ also says that if Binance builds a Metaverse, then it’s definitely going to be powered by BNB, but since they are not game builders (yet) and don’t have a game building team, he is more open to just investing in other virtual reality or Metaverse games.

8. Binance, Mastercard issuing prepaid card in Brazil link

Crypto exchange Binance is partnering with Mastercard to launch a prepaid card in Brazil. The exchange rolled out a prepaid card in Argentina last year. Latin Americans are increasingly turning to cryptocurrencies amid high inflation, capital controls.

9. Glassnode: Bitcoin market sees strong monthly price performance link

As the end of January approaches, Bitcoin markets have seen the strongest monthly price performance since Oct-2021, fuelled by both historic spot demand, and a sequence of short squeezes. This rally has brought a large portion of the market back into profit, and resulted in futures markets trading at a healthy contango. We also note that initial impulse of exchange outflows, in the aftermath of FTX have calmed to neutral, and are now balanced by newly motivated inflows.

10. Chainalysis to lay off 4.8% of staff link

Crypto data analytics and security firm Chainalysis is laying off about 44 of its 900 employees, or 4.8 percent of its workforce, mostly salespeople. The job cuts were largely due to a sharp drop in demand from the private sector.

Fundraising

• YGG Japan, a blockchain game platformer, has completed a private round of fundraising worth ~ $2.95 million link

• Longevity start-up VitaDAO announced that it has raised $4.1 million; investors include former Coinbase CTO and the investment arm of Pfizer link

• Hypernative, a crypto security-focused startup, has raised $9 million in seed funding led by boldstart ventures and IBI tech fund link

• Sovereign Labs raised $7.4 million in a seed round led by Haun Ventures link

• Blockchain security firm Sec3 raises $10 million in seed funding, led by Multicoin Capital link

• Digital fingerprinting startup Addressable raised a $7.5 million seed round link

• Canadian crypto mining firm Pow.re had closed a $9.2 million Series A round as well as a $18 million strategic investment link

• Port3 Network has raised a $3 million seed round led by KuCoin Ventures link

Learn more, check out crypto-fundraising.info.

Follow us

Twitter: https://twitter.com/WuBlockchain

Telegram: https://t.me/wublockchainenglish